CONNEG 


HOU§E 

■'I      Hi 


ISHAM 
AND 

BROWN 

1,11 


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LIBRARY 

UNIVERSITY  OF  CALIFORNIA 

RIVERSIDE 


f  E.WEYHE 

1/04  Lexington  >> 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES 


_Early 
Connecticut  Houses 


IIISTUklCAL  AND  AKCIllTECTURAL  STUDY 


NORMAN    M.  ISHAM.    A.  M. 

ARCHITECT 

ALBERT    F.  BROWN 

ARCHITECT 


Providence,  R.  I. 

THE    PRESTON    AND    ROUNDS    COMPANY 

1900 


Copyright,  igoo 

BV  THH    FHESTON    AND    ROUNDS    COMPANY 


l-REss  OK  E,  L.  Freeman  &  sons,  i-KO\'iDENtE,  R.  1, 


TO 

Francis  Stiles,  William  Andrews,  John  Elderkin 
William   Havden,  Jarvis   Boykin 

AND    the    others 
THE    EARLY    CRAFTSMEN    OF    CONNECTICUT 


PREFACE. 


This  book  is  based  upon  the  examination  and  measure- 
ment of  a  considerable  number  of  the  older  houses  of 
Connecticut.  We  have  not  attempted  to  record  every 
example.  From  the  wealth  of  old  work  now  standing  in  the  State 
circumstances  of  time  and  expense,  as  well  as  the  limits  of  our 
book,  have  caused  us  to  select  typical  dwellings  and  to  leave  un- 
measured much  that  is  of  great  interest  and  value.  Our  aim  has 
been  not  to  make  a  mere  list  of  old  houses  with  a  description  of 
each  one,  but  rather  to  trace  the  development  of  planning  and 
the  survivals  and  the  changes  of  building  methods  in  the  architec- 
tural history  of  the  colony.  We  can  only  hope  that  our  work  may 
be  the  means  of  enlivening  and  assisting  the  already  awakened  in- 
terest in  these  monuments  of  our  colonial  history,  so  that  we  may 
have  uniform  and  accurate  records  of  all  of  them,  for  we  are  sadly 
aware  that  many  must  have  escaped  our  notice. 

We  owe  many  thanks  for  assistance  cheerfully  and  generously 
given,  in  all  the  towns  where  we  have  carried  on  our  investiga- 
tions.  Especially  are  our  thanks  due  to  the  owners  and  the  occu- 
pants of  the  old  houses,  who  have  constantly  put  their  dwellings 
at  our  disposal,  often  at  some  inconvenience,  no  doubt,  to  them- 
selves, and  have  allowed  us  to  measure  and  sketch  at  our  leisure. 

The  architectural  illustrations  will  explain  themselves.  We  have 
personally  examined  every  building  now  standing  of  which  we  give 


VI.  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

a  drawing.  The  reader  may  rest  assured  that  the  figures  given  on 
the  plans  and  sections  are  reproductions  of  actual  measurements. 
The  external  views  are  in  all  cases  from  photographs. 

A  word  may  be  necessary  about  the  map.  This  we  have 
brought  in,  not  to  enter  the  lists  in  behalf  of  any  ideas  of  his- 
torical geography  we  may  have,  but  to  give  a  clearer  notion  of 
the  original  arrangement  and  extent  of  the  territories  of  the  dif- 
ferent settlements  wherein  are  the  houses  of  which  the  text  treats. 
We  think  it  accurate  enough  for  this  purpose,  even  if  in  it  two 
or  possibly  three  periods  may  overlap. 

The  word  Connecticut,  as  used  in  our  text,  has  two  meanings. 
One  is  that  of  the  present  State,  the  other  that  of  the  settlements 
on  the  Connecticut  river  in  distinction  from  New  Haven.  This 
latter  meaning  we  have  tried  to  convey,  where  we  could,  by  add- 
ing the  word  "jurisdiction,"  or  some  similar  term,  to  the  common 
name.  In  the  same  way  the  expression  "  New  'Haven  jurisdic- 
tion "  is  used  to  distinguish  between  New  Haven  itself  and  the 
league  of  which  it  was  the  head.  In  other  cases  the  context  will 
make  clear  the  meaning. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER  I. 


Introduction 


CHAPTER   n. 


The  Earliest   Period  in  the  Connecticut  Colony,  1635-1675 


The  John  Clark    House,  Farmington. 
The  Gleason   House,  Farmington. 
The  Lewis  House,  Farmington. 
The  Cowles  House,  Farmington. 
The  Whitman  House,  Farmington. 
The  Moore  House,  Windsor. 
The  Joseph   Whiting  House,  Hartford. 
The  Dorus  Barnard   House,  Hartford. 


CHAPTER  in. 


The  Second  Period  in  the  Connecticut  Colony,  1675-1700 

1.  The   HoUister  House,  South  Glastonbury. 

2.  The  Patterson   House,  Berlin. 

3.  The  John   Barnard   House,  Hartford. 


49 


VIU. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


CHAPTER  IV. 


The  Third  Period  in  the  Connecticut  Colony,  1700-1750. 


The  Barrett  House,  Wethersfield. 

The  Meggatt  House,  WetHersfield. 

The  Sheldon  Woodbridge  House,  Hartford. 

The  \\'ebb  House,  Wethersfield. 

'I'he  libenezer  Crant   House,  South   Windsor. 


67 


CHAPTER  V. 
The  Earliest  Perio:)  in  the  New   Haven  Colony,  1638-1675 

1.  The  Theophilus  Eaton   House,  New  Haven. 

2.  The  Henry  Whitfield  House,  Guilford. 

3.  The  Baldwin   House,  Branford. 


93 


CHAPTER  VI. 
The  Second  Period   in  the  New  Haven  Colony,  1675-1700 

1.  The  Thomas  Painter   House,  West  Haven. 

2.  The  Stowe  House,  Milford. 

3.  The  Harrison   House,  Branford. 

4.  The  Goldsmith  -  Cleveland   House,  Southold. 

CHAPTER  VII. 
The  Third  Period  in  the  New  Haven  Colony,  1700-1750. 

1.  The  Fiske- Wildman  House,  Guilford. 

2.  The  Caldwell  House,  Guilford. 

3.  The  Benjamin   House,  Milford. 


143 


CONTENTS.  IX. 

CHAPTER  VIII. 
Nkw  London .-...-       jjs 

1.  The   Hempstead   House,  New   London. 

2.  The  Cady   House,  Putnam. 

3.  The  Kinsman   House,  Lisbon. 

CH.APTER  IX. 
Construction      ------.---.-173 

1.  Stone -work  and  Brick -work. 

2.  Wood -work  and   Framing. 

The  Frame. 
The  Covering. 
The  Interior. 

3.  Iron -work. 

APPENDICES. 

I.     The  Joseph  Whiting   House      --------  279 

II.     The  Webster  Houses         ---------  282 

III.     The   Inventory  of  Governor   E.\ton       -_..-_  2S7 

Inde.k    --------------  297 


LIST  OF   ILLUSTRATIONS 


Map 

of 

E;u- 

Figure 

I. 

2 

3- 

4- 

5- 

6. 

7- 
8. 

9- 

lO. 

1  I. 

12. 

14- 

'5- 
i6. 

'T- 

IS. 

19- 

20. 

ly  Connecticut        .         .         .         -         - 
Development  of  the  Connecticut   Plan 
The  Cellar  ----- 


The  Talcott   House     - 
The  John  Clark   House 

'l"he  Gleason   House    - 


22. 
23- 
24- 
25- 


The  Lewis  House 
The  Cowles  House 
The  Whitman  House  - 


The  Moore  House 

The  Joseph    Whiting 

House  - 
The   Joseph    Whiting 

House  - 
The  Dorus  Barnard  House 


Restored   E.\terior    - 

Exterior   - 

Overhangs 

Present  E.\terior 

First  Story   Plan 

Cross  Section   - 

Longitudinal  Section 

Perspective  of  Framing 

Overhang 

First  Story   Plan 

Present  E.xterior 

Present  E.xterior 

First  Story   Plan 

Sections    - 

The   Drop 

Restored  Exterior    - 

Skeleton  Plan  - 

Present   E.xterior 

First  Story   Plan 
Exterior   - 
First  Story  Plan 
Attic  Floor  Framing 
Section  Thro'   Roof 


Page. 

3 
6 

■  '3 

■  '4 

-  i8 

-  >9 

2  I 
22 

-  23 

24 

-  25 

-  26 

-  27 

-  29 

3' 

-  3,2, 

-  34 

-  35 

-  37 

-  38 

-  40 

-  42 

-  44 

-  45 

-  46 

-  47 


CONTENTS.  XI. 

Pagb. 

Figure     26.     The   HoUister  House  -  Present  Exterior       -  -  -  -53 

"          27.        "             "               "       -  First  Story   Plan       -  •■  -  -  54 

28.        "             "              "       -  Cross  Section  -----  56 

"          29.     The  Patterson  House  -  Present  Exterior      -  -  -  -  58 

30.        "              "              "       -  First  Story   Plan       -  -  -  -  60 

"          31.        "              "              "       -  Cross  Section   -         -  -  -  -  62 

''          ^2.     The  John  Barnard  House,  Exterior   ------  64 

33.        "         "            "            "  First  Story  Plan       -  -  -  -  65 

"          34.     The  Barrett   House      -  Present  Exterior       -  -  -  -  7° 

"          35.     The  Meggatt   House    -  Present  Exterior      -  -  -  -  71 

"          36.        "            "              "        -  First  Story  Plan       -  -  -  -  73 

"          37.        "            "              "        -  Framing  Scheme       -  -  -  -  74 

"  38.     The  Sheldon  Woodbridge 

House  -  -  -  Present  Exterior  -  -  -  -  76 
"          39.     The  Sheldon  Woodbridge 

House  -  -  -  First  Story  Plan  -  -  -  -  78 
"          40.     The  Sheldon  Woodbridge 

House  -  -  -  Framing  Scheme  -  -  -  -  80 
"          41.     The  Sheldon  Woodbridge 

House    -         -         -  Second  Story  Plan  -  -  -  -  Si 

"          42.     The  Webb  House         -  Present  Exterior       -  -  -  83 

43"  "  "  -  First  Story  Plan  -  -  -  -  84 
"          44.     The    Ebenezer    Grant 

House  -  -  -  Present  Exterior  ■  -  -  -  87 
"          45.     The    Ebenezer    Grant 

House  -  -  -  F'irst  Story  Plan  -  -  -  -  89 
"          46.     The    Ebenezer    Grant 

House    -         -         -  Detail  of  Doorway  -  •  -  -  9' 

"          47.     The   Gov.    Eaton    House,  Southwest  View,  from   Lambert  -  97 

"          48.        "        "          "             "  Restored  First  Story  Plan  -  -  101 

"          49-        "         "           "             "  Restored  Second  Story   Plan  -  -  106 

50.  The    Henry    Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Present  Exterior       -  -  -  -  112 

51.  The    Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Exterior  from  an  old  Photograph  -  115 


XII.  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Page. 

Figure     52.     The    Henry    Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Smith's  Drawings     -         -         -         -    116 

"  53.     The    Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Cross  Section,  looking  east       -         -    i'7 

"  54.     The    Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Present  First  Story  Plan  -         -   118 

55.     The    Henry   Wh  i  t  fi  e  I  d 

House    -         -        -  Smith's  Plans  -         -         -         -         -   119 

"  56.     The    Henry    Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  The   North  Side        -         -         -         -120 

57.     The    Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  A   Restoration  -         -         -         -    121 

"  58.     Plan  of  Sutton  Courtenay,  Berkshire  -         -         -         -         -    122 

"  59.     The    Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  Detail  of  Folding  Partition      -         -   '^3 

Tailpiece.         The   Henry   Whitfield 

House    -         -         -  The  North  Sides  Before  Alteration, 

from  a   Photograph      -         -         -   124 

Figure     60.      The  Baldwin   House    -  Present  Exterior       -         -         -         -    '25 

"  61.        '•  "  "        -  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -         -    126 

"  62.        "  "  "        -  Cross  Section   -         -         -         -         -    127 

"  63.     The  Thomas    Painter 

House    -         -         -  Present  Exterior       -         -         -         -   133 

"  64.     The    Thomas    Painter 

House    -         -         -  First  Story   Plan       -         -         -         -   '34 

"  65.     The  Thomas    Painter 

House    -         -         -  Cross  Section 135 

"  66.     The   Thomas   Painter 

House    -         -         -  Longitudinal  Section        -         -         -    '36 

"         67.     The  Stowe  House       -  Present  Exterior       -         -         -  137 

68.        "  "  "  -  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -  138 

"  69.     The  Goldsmith-Cleveland 

House    -         -         -  Skeleton   Plan  -         -         -         -         -    140 

"  70.     The  Goldsmith-Cleveland 

House    -         -         -  Elevation  of  Outside  Wall        -         -   141 


CONTENTS.  XUl. 

Pace. 

Figure     71.     The   Moore   House       -  Exterior   ------   142 

"  72.     The  Fiske-Wildmau  House     Present  Exterior      .         .  -         -   146 

73.        "  "  "  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -         -   147 

"  74.        "  "  "  Overhang 148 

"  75.     The  Caldwell  House  -  Present  Exterior       -         -         -         -   151 

"  76.        "  "  "       -  Second  Story  Plan  -         -         -         -    "52 

"  77.        "  "  "       -  Cross  Section  -----    153 

"  78.     The  Benjamin  House-  Present  Exterior       -         -         -         .    ijj 

"  79.        "  "  "       -  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -         -   156 

"  80.        "  "  "       -  Cross  Section  -         -         -         -         -    '57 

"  81.     The    Hempstead    House       Present  Exterior       -         -         -         -   162 

82.        "  "  "  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -         -    163 

"         83.        "  "  "  Cross  Section 164 

"  84.     The  Cady  House         -  Ruined  Chimney       -         -         -         -   167 

85.        "         "  "  -  Sketch  Plan 168 

"  86.        "         "  "  -  Plan  and  Section  of  Chimney  -   168 

'■  87.     The  Kinsman   House-  First  Story  Plan       -         -         -         -   170 

88.         "  "  "      -  Second  Story  Plan  -         -         -         -    171 

"  89.     Chimney,  Whitfield   House  -  -  -  -  -  -  •    igi 

"  Thoroughgood   House  ------   1^2 

"  Talcott  House     -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -   194 

Brick  Details,  Sheldon  Woodbridge  House         -         -         -         -   195 

The  Kerf,  Scoring,  Sawing  -------  203 

Methods  of  Sawing  Timber        --.-.-.  208 
Posts  -        -        -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -212 

Framing  Details,  Gleason   House        -         -         -         -         -         -  213 

"         Scheme,  Meggatt  House       -         -         -         -         -         -  214 

"  "        Sheldon  Woodbridge   House  -         -         -         -  216 

"        Caldwell  House 217 

"  Details,  Whitman   House       ------   219 

"  "       Baldwin  House        ------  220 

"  "        Dorus  Barnard  House,  John   Barnard   House, 

Hempstead   House 222 

Framing  Details,  Hollister  House,  Patterson   House  -         -  226 

"  "        Painter  House  ------  227 


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92. 

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96. 

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VI. 

XIV. 


'igure     99 

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'°5 


Plate 
Figure 


106 
107 
108, 
109 
1 10 
I  1 1 
I  I  2 

■  13 

1  14 

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EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Pace. 

Chamfers 228 

Details  of  Overhangs  ..-....-  232 

Drops,  Whitman   House 233 

Scale   Drawings  of  Overhangs 234 

P'raming  Details  of  Overhangs 235 

The   Post -Bracket  and   the  Overhang 237 

Development  of   the   Hewn   (  )verhang  .  .  .  -  -   238 

Gable  Bracket,  Moore   House 241 

Framing  of  Gable  Overhang  and  of  Cornice     -         -         -         -  242 

The  Froe     - 245 

Sash  now  in   Rooms  of  Connecticut   Historical  Society      -         -   254 

Mouldings 260 

Stair  Details 263 

Scheme  of  Staircase,  Patterson   House 265 

The   Marsh   House,  Plan  Showing  Alterations    -         -         -         -  268 

Handles  and   Hinges  - -  275 

Lock -Plate,   1657 276 

The  Webster  Estates 282 


EARLY  CONlNBCTlCUT  HOUSES. 


CHAPTER    I. 


INTRODUCTION. 

jHE  colonial  commonwealth  of  Connecticut  was  made  up, 
like  its  early  New  England  neighbors,  of  several  independ- 
ent settlements.  Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Wethersfield — 
the  river  towns,  as  they  were  called — formed  one  group;  New  Haven, 
Guilford,  and  the  other  settlements  around  Quinnipiac,  a  second ; 
while  the  unsuccessful  venture  at  Saybrook  made  a  third.  A  fourth 
— partly  independent  in  character,  if  not  in  politics — existed  at  New 
London,  founded  in   1646. 

Progress  in  unity  began  with  the  Hartford  colony,  and  did  not 
cease  till  the  whole  territory  covered  by  the  present  State  was 
brought  under  the  jurisdiction  of  the  charter  government.  There- 
fore, though  there  never  were  between  the  original  components  of 
the  commonwealth  the  strongly  marked  differences  which  existed 
in  Rhode  Island,  there  still  were  joints  visible  in  the  political  struc- 
ture of  Connecticut ;  and  these  were  faithfully  repeated  in  the  archi- 
tecture of  the  first  century  of  the  colony's  existence. 


1  KAKl.V     CONNECTICUT     IIOUSKS. 

Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Wethersfield  were  settled  at  practically 
the  same  time — the  spring  of  1636.  The  people  thereof  were  not 
exiles  from  Massachusetts.  They  came  voluntarily;  lured,  indeed, 
by  the  rich  valley  of  the  Connecticut,  but  chiefly  because  they  were 
too  democratic  to  live  under  the  theocracy  of  Massachusetts  Bay. 
Not  closely  straitened  for  this  world's  goods,  settled  on  some  of 
the  most  fertile  land  in  New  England,  they  soon  pushed  their 
boundaries  before  them  into  the  wilderness  and  gave  evidence  that 
they  were  to  be  the  dominating  element  in  the  new  territory.  With 
the  help  of  Massachusetts  they  conquered  and  practically  destroyed 
the  Pequots  and  annexed  their  territory — thereby  acquiring,  as  they 
claimed,  the  title  to  jurisdiction  over  New  London.  They  bought 
Saybrook  from  P'enwick,  and  with  it,  as  they  asserted,  the  patent 
right  of  the  original  proprietors  under  the  Warwick  grant,  and  the 
chance  of  extending  their  jurisdiction  to  Narragansett  Bay.  Finally, 
when  lonser  existence  without  a  charter  title  to  the  soil  was  be- 
coming  impossible,  they  sent  Winthrop  to  England  ;  and,  on  his  re- 
turn with  the  charter  of  1662,  they  brought  their  reluctant  brethren 
of  New  Haven  under  its  yoke  with  themselves  and  tried  to  subject 
to  it  the  Narragansett  country  of  Rhode  Island.  Shrewd,  far-seeing, 
careful  men,  with  as  much  piety  as  those  they  left  behind  in  Boston 
and  with  le.ss  spiritual  pride,  the  founders  of  the  river  colony  held 
a  calm  but  sure  grip  on  the  things  of  this  world.  A  quiet,  steady 
people,  they  stood  midway  between  the  persecuting  theocrats  of 
Massachusetts    and    the    scriptural    republic    of    New    Haven. 

The    latter    colonists    were    still    less    exiles    from    Massachusetts 
than  their  Hartford  brethren.      Settling  in   1638   around  the  mouth 
of    the    Quinnipiac   river,   they    gradually  acquired    the    territory   to- 
ward  the   north    and   spread   over   upon    the   shore    of    Long    Island 
Stamford    and    Branford    they   sold    to   seceders    from    Wethersfield  ; 


4  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

but  these  were  ultra -Puritans  like  themselves,  so  that  the  jurisdic- 
tion of  New  Haven  over  those  towns  was  not  thus  impaired,  and 
the  confederation  formed  in  1643'  stood  till  the  shrewder  men  of 
Hartford,  by  including  the  territory  of  New  Haven  witliin  the 
jurisdiction  given  by  the  charter,  forced  that  colony  to  join  them 
in    the   new  government. 

In  1638,  John  Winthrop  the  younger,  who  had  in  1635  been 
appointed  by  the  English  patentees  governor  of  the  fort  at  Say- 
brook,  had  made  a  purchase  of  land  in  the  old  Pequot  territory. 
This,  as  covering  land  claimed  by  right  of  conquest,  the  unpatented 
court  at  Hartford  persuaded  the  Commissioners  of  the  United  Col- 
onies to  disallow  on  rather  flimsy  pretexts.  Winthrop  seems  to 
have  submitted  with  a  good  grace.  In  1647  he  took  from  the 
Hartford  legislature  his  commission  as  the  first  magistrate  in  the 
settlement  which  in  1645  and  1646  he  had  founded  at  New  London. 

These  three  settlements,  then,  with  their  dependencies — for  the 
Saybrook  foundation  was  never  a  factor  in  the  history  of  the 
State — were  the  framework  on  which  hangs  the  political  history  of 
Connecticut.'-'  They  were  all  different,  yet  not  sharply  so,  and  the 
differences  are  also  slio;ht  which  we  find  in  the  schools  of  archi- 
tecture  that  prevail  among  them.  One  typical  plan  will  serve  for 
all  three.  The  differences  which  appear  are  differences  of  detail. 
These  came  from  the  constructive  preferences  of  the  carpenters  and 
masons  who  literally  founded  and  built  the  commonwealth,  and  who. 


'  New  Haven,  Guilford,  and  Milford  were  originally  independent. 

■'The  map  opposite  page  2  aims  to  explain  the  political  history  here  rehearsed.  It  does  not  con- 
fine itself  to  any  one  period,  but  gives,  in  their  larger  extent,  all  the  settlements  or  towns  where  the 
oldest  houses  are  to  be  looked  for.  We  may  point  out  that  the  towns  all  cling  either  to  the  shore  of 
the  Sound  or  to  the  river  valleys  which  invited  settlement,  not  only  by  the  water  and  the  meadows 
they  offered,  but  by  the  fact  that  their  north  and  south  direction  exposed  them  to  the  sun  and  gave 
them  thus  a  pleasant  climate.  The  historical  geography  of  New  England  is  an  absorbing  subject  ; 
and  it  is  strange  that  no  serious  attempt  to  deal  with  more  than  parts  of  it  has  yet  been  made. 


EARr.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  0 

through  their  successive  apprentices,  handed  down  their  different 
craft-traditions.  In  the  very  beginning  the  greater  wealth  of  the 
New  Haven  men,  as  compared  with  that  of  the  other  colonists,  did 
make  an  apparent  difference,  and  perhaps  Hartford  also  may  at 
first  have  surpassed  New  London  ;  but  in  a  few  years  these  differ- 
ences became  less  prominent  in  the  architecture  of  the  colonies, 
and  we  find  the  general  uniformity  of  which  we  spoke. 

The  political  relation  of  the  settlements  in  what  is  now  Connec- 
ticut with  the  other  members  of  the  league,  which,  under  the  name 
the  United  Colonies  of  New  England,  was  formed  in  1643,  is  also 
reflected  in  the  architecture  of  the  period ;  for,  as  the  Connecticut 
colonies  were  not  isolated  from  the  others  in  New  England — except 
from  Rhode  Island,  which  was  left  out  of  the  union — so  we  do  not 
find  in  them  houses  which  differ  greatly  from  those  in  Plymouth  or 
in  Massachusetts  I3ay.  An  apparent  exception  to  this  is  found  in 
Newport  and  Narragansett.  Between  Providence  and  either  of  these 
places  there  is,  architecturally,  a  chasm  of  no  mean  breadth.  Be- 
tween the  Newport  or  the  Narragansett  house  and  the  house  in 
Connecticut,  either  at  Hartford  or  at  New  Haven,  the  difference, 
in  the  seventeenth  century,  was  not  great.  At  Newport  this  may 
be  explained  by  the  fact  that  many  of  the  settlers  were  wealthy 
men  from  the  Bay  Colony  ;  in  the  Narragansett  it  may  readily  be 
referred  to  the  early  dependence  upon  Connecticut,  or  to  the  Mas- 
sachusetts origin  of  most  of  the  Atherton  partners  and  of  the 
settlers  they  gathered. 

The  wide  difference  between  the  work  in  Providence  and  the 
other  building  fashions  in  New  England,  as  well  as  the  general  re- 
semblance between  those  fashions  as  we  find  them  in  Connecticut 
and  in  Massachusetts,  will  best  be  appreciated  in  Figure  i,  where 
the  plans  common  in   the  various  colonies  are  set  forth. 


(j 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


m: i 

iSBi I 


A(»rin£ct;car  kfenod 


! t J-- 

1  ....M... 

i 

L....M... 

y' 

--Bi--' 

i'"-. 

J^ 

[iMr<»<  <  A 

/■ 

r 

III 

■      1 

r 


1  Lean  lo       2r^d  ri:#iod 


Bl       UlDcM[r.nj  Bz 


Tlie  typical  Connecticut  house  consists  of  two  rooms  with  a 
chimney  between  them.  In  front  of  the  chimney  is  the  entry  with 
its  staircase.  The  second  floor  is  carried  by  a  beam  called  the 
summer,  which    runs,  in   each    room,  from    the   chimney  to   the   end 

of  the  house,  and  which 
is  thus  parallel  with  the 
front  wall  of  the  build- 
ing. In  only  one  in- 
stance, the  older  part  of 
the  Hempstead  house  at 
New  London,  does  the 
b e am  run  across  the 
room. 

In  Massachusetts  Hay 
we  find  exactly  the  same 
plan,  the  two  rooms  with 
the  central  chimney. 
We  do  not,  however,  al- 
ways find  the  summer 
running  in  the  same  way.  It  is  not  uncommon  to  see  it  spanning 
the  room  from  front  wall  to  back  wall,  and  thus  parallel  to  the 
end  of  the  building  (as  in  G,  in  Figure  i  ).  This  is  the  case  in 
the  Roger  Williams  house  in  Salem,  and  in  the  I'airbanks  house 
at   Dedham. 

In  the  Plymouth  colony  the  two-room  plan  occurs  with  the 
summer  running  as  in  Connecticut.  To  this  we  have  seen  no 
exceptions.  Side  by  side  with  this  plan  is  another,  of  one  room 
with  a  chimney  standing  at  one  end  of  it,  though  generally  not 
appearing  on  the  outside,  and  with  sometimes  a  lean-to  at  the  end, 
beyond  this  chimney,  as  we  have  indicated  by  the  dotted  lines  at  E. 


r 

X-\[ 

% 

.__.J|  !i... 

\ 

,L... 

.....J..  J... 

I 

'■■■ '■ ^Li^^^ . 


G 

Figure  i.— Development  of  the  CoNNECTrcuT  Plan. 
1636-1750. 


D 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  / 

In  Providence,  which  in  the  seventeenth  century  included  all 
northern  Rhode  Island,  the  typical  plan  contains  one  room,  at  the 
end  of  which  is  a  vast  stone  chimney  which  appears  on  the  out- 
side of  the  house.  The  summer  runs  as  it  does  in  Connecticut, 
so  that  the  building,  it  will  readily  be  seen,  resembles  the  exact 
half  of  a  Connecticut  dwelling. 

In  Newport  and  Narragansett  this  "stone-end"  house  occurs, 
but   the    typical    plan   is   that   of   Connecticut. 

Let  us  now  trace  the  development  of  the  type  of  plan  which 
prevailed  in  Connecticut.  Our  knowledge  of  the  earliest  building 
in  the  colony  —  drawn,  in  the  cases  of  all  three  of  the  original 
settlements,  from  the  records — shows  that,  as  in  Massachusetts  and 
Rhode  Island,  the  craftsmen  either  were  among  the  original  settlers 
or  came  soon  after  them.  We  can  prove  that  among  those  who 
followed  Hooker  through  the  wilderness,'  or  who  came  with  Daven- 
port,  there  were  artisans  of  several  kinds;  so  that  we  are  justified 
in  passing  over  very  lightly  the  cellars  or  the  log  hut  and  wooden 
chimney  stage  of  building,  and  in  fixing  our  type  for  the  first 
period  of  the  three  into  which  we  intend  to  divide  the  chronology 
of  the  subject  as  that  which  we  have  described  above  —  the  two- 
room  house,  of  two  stories,  with  the  chimney  in  the  middle  and 
the  staircase  in  front  of   the  chimney. 

In  the  old  Connecticut  colony  the  chimney  is  usually  of  stone, 
and  there  is,  very  often,  a  heavy  framed  overhang  in  the  second 
story.  This  is  shown  in  A,  of  Figure  i.  In  the  New  Haven 
jurisdiction,  though  the  chimney  was  very  commonly  of  stone,  it 
was   often   of    brick  —  more   frequently  so   than   elsewhere  —  and   the 

'Nicholas  Clark,  in  i()35,  before  the  arrival  of  Hooker,  built  for  Talcolt  the  first  house  in  Hart- 
ford.— Afem.  //is/,  //art.  County,  vol.  I.,  p.  263.  Francis  Stiles,  a  London  carpenter,  sent  by  Salton- 
stall,  was  at  Windsor  in   1635. — Stiles,  //istory  of  Ancient   IVinc/sor,   L,  p.  44. 


b  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

overhang,  when  it  occurred,  was  of  a  different  type.  In  New  Lon- 
don and  Norwich  the  overhang  was  not  so  much  used  as  in  Hart- 
ford, and  the  chimneys,  as  in  general  in  eastern  Connecticut  till 
very  late,  were  of  stone. 

We  have  made  the  first  period  extend,  as  in  Rhode  Island,  to 
King  Philip's  War.  The  last  quarter  of  the  century  shows  a 
change  in  the  manner  of  building  which,  while  it  came  earlier  in 
one  place  or  later  in  another,  is  best  marked  by  the  year  1675. 
Wealth  had  been  increasing  during  the  preceding  years.  The 
older  settlers  were  by  this  time  passing  from  the  stage,  and  the 
younger  race  of  craftsmen  had  come  forward,  in  whom  the  tradi- 
tions, brought  from  England  by  their  fathers  and  grandfathers  and 
already  modified  by  the  new  surroundings,  were  to  undergo  still 
greater  change.  Accordingly,  in  the  second  period,  from  1675  to 
1 700,  we  find  everywhere,  except  where  gneiss,  a  stratified  granite 
easily  split,  is  abundant,  a  more  general  use  of  brick  and  an  aban- 
doning of  many  of  the  older  and  more  traditional  forms  of  con- 
struction and  ornamentation.  The  lean-to  also  appears ;  but  while 
in  the  first  period  it  had  been  an  addition  merely,  it  is  now  used 
not  only  to  enlarge  old  houses,  but  as  an  integral  part  of  the  en- 
larged plan  which  had  come  to  be  a  necessity  in  the  new  dwell- 
ings This  enlarged  form  of  the  plan  is  given  in  B  and  Bi,  of 
Figure  i.  The  added  space  at  the  back,  used  for  the  kitchen, 
with  a  pantry  and   a   bedroom,  is  covered   by  the   lean-to. 

In  the  river  towns  these  changes  are  accompanied  by  the  drop- 
ping of  the  great  overhang  or  by  the  reduction  of  it  to  a  few 
inches.  Lime  mortar  and  plaster  also  come  into  use  in  these  settle- 
ments. 

In  New  Haven,  beside  the  enlargement  of  the  plan,  we  find 
less   change   than   in    Hartford ;    but   here   and   in    New  London   the 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  » 

greater  use  of  brick  and  the  lean-to  as  part  of  the  house  may  be 
looked  on  as  the  marks  of   the  second  period. 

The  third  period  lasted  from  1700  to  as  late  as  1750,  or  even 
beyond.  The  years  after  1725,  however,  though  the  old  lean-to 
forms  can  still  be  found  persisting  through  them,  are  really  a  part 
of  the  so-called  Colonial  time,  and  nothing  but  the  tenacity  with 
which  the  carpenters  clung  to  the  ancient  modes  of  framing  dis- 
tinguishes such  houses  as  the  Webb  and  the  Grant  from  those 
of  Revolutionary  days.  The  clothing  of  the  frame  and  the  treat- 
ment of  the  details,  thoufjh  rude  at  times  and  lacking:  in  taste  and 
skill  as  classic  work,  are  still  those  which  belong  to  the  Georgian 
period,  or  at  least  to  the  days  of   Sir  Christopher  Wren. 

In  the  early  part  of  this  period — what  we  might  call  the  period 
proper — the  plan  does  not  change.  The  same  disposition  which 
we  saw  in  the  second  period  is  still  characteristic  of  this  time 
throughout  the  State.  The  great  improvement  is  the  abandoning 
of  the  long,  sloping,  lean-to  roof,  and  the  building  of  two  whole 
stories  on  the  plan  of  the  second  period.  The  lean-to  has  been 
raised,  so  to  speak,  till  its  "chamber"  is  no  longer  a  rude  garret- 
like space,  but  is  a  room  like  the  kitchen  and  other  apartments 
below,  and  of   the  same  height  as  the  front  chambers. 

During  the  last  two  periods  houses  were  built  which  were  sur- 
vivals of  the  types  in  use  in  the  preceding  times.  The  two-room 
house  is  common  in  the  second  period  and  lives  on  even  into  the 
third,  while  the  lean-to  house  of  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth 
century  lingers   in   the  third  period  as  far  down   as    1750. 

The  overhang,  too,  still  survives  in  this  third  period,  though 
sometimes  in  a  much  modified  form,  and  brick  supersedes  stone  ex- 
cept in  the  poorest  districts,  or  in  places  like  Guilford  or  Norwich 
where  gneiss  was   so  easily  procured  as  to  be  the  natural  material. 


10  KARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Toward  the  end  of  the  period,  after  1730  or  1735,  the  increased 
wealth  of  the  colonists  and  their  desire  to  follow  English  fashions 
introduced  more  elaborate  finish.  There  appears,  too,  a  most  sig- 
nificant change  in  the  plan,'  the  introduction  of  the  central-entry 
type,  which  we  have  shown  in  the  corner  plans  in  the  lower  row 
of  Figure  i.  Here  the  old  entry  or  porch,  with  the  chimney  be- 
hind it,  is  replaced  by  a  passage  running  from  the  front  to  the 
back  of  the  house.  There  are  two  rooms  at  each  side  of  this 
passage,  and  the  chimneys  of  these  were  at  first  in  the  end  walls 
of  the  house  and  then  between  each  pair  in  the  plan  at  D  in 
Figure  i,  as  the  chimney  once  was  between  the  two  rooms  which 
anciently  constituted  the  dwelling.  Finally,  when  this  type  was 
fully  established,  the  summer  ran  as  the  dotted  line  in  D  shows — 
that  is,  it  followed  its  old  habit  and  ran  toward  the  chimney — for 
we  ha\e  now,  as  it  were,  two  of  the  old  first  period  houses  placed 
side  by  side  with  a  passage  between  them.  The  summer  is  here, 
therefore,  not  really  changing  and  running  differently  from  its  old 
way,  though  it  seems  to  be  doing  so.'~  We  still  have  called  it  a 
summer,  but  it  has  lost  all  its  former  character.  .  It  is  now  of  the 
same  depth  as  the  floor  joists,  and,  like  them,  is  concealed  by  the 
lath  and   plaster  of   the  room. 

A  later  development  still  is  the  addition  of  the  ell — often  really 
an  older  house — to  contain  the  kitchen,  which  at  first,  in  these 
houses,  was  in  the  room  behind  the  winter  parlor,  which,  in  its 
turn,  was  at  the  west  or  south  side  of  the  dwelling,  at  the  opposite 
end  from   the  summer  parlor. 


'  Developed,  at  this  time  especially,  from  an  older  central-entry  type  which  came  from  England. 
See  Chapter  X  ;  also  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge  house,  Chapter  IV  :  and  the  Whitfield  house.  Chapter  V. 

'There  are  some  peculiar  w.iys  of  treating  the  late  summers  which  we  shall  explain  under  the 
houses  in  which  they  occur. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  11 

Already,  early  in  this  period,  if  not  toward  the  end  of  the  one 
before  it,  the  old  sharp  pitch  of  the  roof  had  been  visibly  flattened, 
and  before  the  end  the  gambrel  had  become  established  —  though 
how  or  when   it  came  into  fashion   is  an   obscure  question. 

The  central  entry  plan  with  either  a  gambrel  or  a  plain  pitched 
roof  held  sway  till  long  after  the  Revolution,  and  was  superseded 
only  at  the  Greek  revival  of  1S30.  About  iSoo  we  sometimes  see 
four  chimneys  in  the  outer  walls — one  chimney  for  each  of  the 
four  rooms — but  it  is  not  often.  Nor  are  the  large  three-story 
houses  of  Salem  and  Providence,  dating  from  the  years  1780  to 
1820,  common   in    Connecticut. 

With  this  general  classification  of  the  types  and  periods  of  the 
colonial  architecture  of  Connecticut  in  mind,  let  us  now  study  the 
work  of  the  different  time-divisions  in  each  of  the  original  settle- 
ments of  the  colony.  We  will  then,  as  in  our  essay  on  Rhode 
Island  houses,  analyze  in  detail  the  forms  and  methods  of  con- 
struction, and  study  the  European  origin  of  the  traditions  held  by 
the   early  craftsmen. 


CHAPTER    11 


THE   EARLIEST    PERIOD    IN    THE    CONNECTICUT    COLONY. 

1635-1675. 


HE  adventurers,  as  they  were  called,  who  laid  the  foun- 
dations of  Hartford,  arrived  at  Suckiaug  in  the  spring  of 
1635.  They  came  from  what  is  now  Cambridge,  Massa- 
chusetts, and  were  followed  in  the  fall  of  the  same  year  by  a 
larger  party  of  about  sixty,  which  included  women  and  children. 
In  the  following  June  —  that  is,  in  1636  —  arrived  the  well-known 
body  of  settlers  under  the  leadership  of  Hooker  and  Stone.  Dur- 
ing the  same  year  the  people  from  Watertown  and  Dorchester 
completed  the  settlements  which  we  now  know  as  Windsor  and 
Wethersfield. 

Of  the  original  houses  built  by  these  first  settlers  there  seem 
to  be  no  remains.  We  have,  however,  much  documentary  evidence 
—  most  of  it  contemporary  —  considerable  tradition  of  more  or  less 
value,  and  some  of  the  houses  built  within  a  few  years  of  the 
settlement,  from  which  to  reconstruct  the  appearance  of  the  an- 
cient   towns. 

According  to  a  tradition,'  supported  by  descriptions  in  early 
deeds,   the    first    dwellings,    at    least    among    the    poorer    class,    were 


'^  Mem.  Hist.  Hartford  Co.,  vol.  I,  p.  224. 


EARt-V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


13 


what  were  called  cellars.  These  were  so  named,  no  doubt,  because 
they  were  constructed  in  exactly  the  same  way  as  the  outdoor 
cellars  used  for  a  long  time  in  all  the  colonies  for  the  storage  of 
vegetables,  even  after  cellars  in  our  modern  sense  of  the  word  had 
been  built  under  the  houses.  These  cellars  were  made  by  digging 
a  shallow  pit  in  the  ground,  preferably  in  a  bank,  and  then  lining 
the  sides  of  the  excava- 
tion with  stone  walls 
carried  above  the  ground 


enough  to  give  a  height 
of  about  seven  feet,  or 
by  setting  against  these 
sides  upright  logs  long- 
enough  to  give  the  same 
height.  These  stone  or 
wood   walls   were   then 

banked  high  with  earth  on  the  outside,  as  is  shown  in  Figure  2 
and  were  roofed  over  either  with  logs  laid  close  together  and  plas- 
tered with  clay,  or  with  bark  or  thatch  on  poles.  The  probability 
is  that  the  roofs  were  of  considerable  pitch  and  were  thatched. 

None  of  the  well-to-do  among  the  settlers  made  use  of  these 
cellars  except  for  the  first  few  weeks,  or  perhaps  months,  of  their 
stay ;  and  the  frame  house  made  its  appearance  at  the  very  begin- 
ning of  the  settlement.  John  I'alcott,  one  of  the  adventurers  who 
came  in  1635,  had  a  house  built  for  him  by  Nicholas  Clark,  who 
must  have  been  a  carpenter.  His  son,  Lieutenant- Colonel  John 
Talcott,  has  left  us  this  information,  with  a  very  brief  account  of 
the  building'  :    "  The  kitchen  that  now  stands  on  the  north  side  of 


Figure  2. — The  Cellar. 


-Memorandum  book  of  Lt.  Col.  John  Talcott,  Jr.,  quoted  in  Afem.  Hisl.  Hartford  Co.,  I.,  p.  263. 


14 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     IIOOSES. 


tlic  liouse  that  I  live  in  was  the  first  house  that  my  father  built 
in  Hartford,  in  Conn.  Colony,  and  was  done  by  Nicholas  Clark, 
the  first  winter  that  any  Englishman  rought  or  built  in  Hartford. 
which  was  in  the  year  1635.  my  father  and  mother  and  his  family 
came  to  Hartford  in  the  year  1636,  and  lived  first  in  said  Kitchen, 
which  was  first  on  west  side  of  chimney.  I  he  great  barn  was 
built   in   the   year   1636,   and    underpined    in    1637,  and   was  the   first 

barn  that  was  raised  in 
the  colony.  The  east 
side  of  this  house  that 
we  live  in,  and  was 
my  father  Talcott's,  de- 
ceased, was  built  with 
the  porch  that  is,  in 
the  year  1638,  and  the 
chimneys  were  built  in 
1638." 

This  first  house  was 
no  doubt  a  frame  af- 
fair one  story,  or  at 
the  most  a  story  and  a 
half,  in  height.  From 
the  fact  that  the  chimneys'  were  built  in  1638  it  looks  as  if  this 
original  dwelling,  which  stood  near  the  present  corner  of  Main  and 
Talcott  streets,  had  its  gable  turned  toward  Main  street  and  only 
a    chimney   of    wood    at    its    eastern    end.       In    163S    a    stone    chim- 


The-Talcutt 

cmt  FKy  Bvia  i/i  ^^^fJf"la)) 
. 1 


Hlc;UbE    J.— Thli    TALCOTi     HoUSt    l/lisloklD. 


'  The  use  of  the  plural  "  chimneys"  does  not  mean  more  than  one  chimney  in  the  sense  in  which 
we  use  the  word.  When  I'alcott  wrote  this,  the  word  "chimney"  had  not  yet  lost  an  earlier  mean- 
ing of  //iif  which  liad  belonged  to  it.  Compare  the  expression  "a  stack  of  stone  chimneys  in  the 
midst"  in  the  town  order  about  the  minister's  house  at  New  London.  June  i.  1666.  (juoted  by  Miss 
Caulliins  in  her  History  of  Ntio  London,  pp.  139,  140. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  15 

ney  replaced  tlie  wooden  one,  and  another  half  of  a  house  was 
added  toward  the  east,  thus  making  a  building  with  two  rooms, 
one  on  each  side  of  a  central  chimney.  The  reference  to  the 
porch  is  obscure.  It  is  best  explained,  as  we  show  in  Figure  3, 
by  supposing  it  to  refer  to  what  was  generally  called  the  porch 
and  assuming  that  Talcott  meant  that  the  space  containing  the 
stairs  was  built  in  front  of  the  new  chimney  when  that  chimney 
was  built,  so  that  while  the  chimney-stack  was  outside  the  old 
kitchen  it  was  within  the  new  east  end.  To  account  for  the  new 
position  of  the  old  kitchen  on  the  north  of  the  house  we  must 
suppose  that  Talcott  moved  it  round  to  that  position  to  serve  as 
a  kitchen  when  he  replaced  it  by  a  western  addition  in  keeping 
with  the  new  eastern  end  and  porch,  which  were  probably  two 
stories  in  height.  The  old  kitchen  was  very  likely  incorporated 
into   the   other   constructions   by  a   lean-to   roof. 

It  would  seem,  then,  that  there  was  a  class  of  houses  which 
consisted  of  one-story  or  of  one-story-and-a-half  structures,  with 
either  two  rooms  and  a  central  chimney  or  one  room  with  an  end 
chimney,  which,  however,  seems  always  to  have  been  covered  over 
or  included  by  the  frame  of  the  house.  Only  two  examples  of  a 
stone  chimney  placed  at  the  end  of  the  house  and  sh^iwing  on  the 
outside  are  known  to  the  writers,  and  both  of  these  are  outside  of 
the  Hartford  colony  —  the  one  at  Saybrook,  the  other  at  Guilford. 
The  one-room,  end-chimney  type  does,  however,  seem  to  have  ap- 
peared in  the  early  houses  of  Hartford  as  an  inferior  or  temporary 
dwelling.  How  long  it  survived  it  is  impossible  to  say.  No  an- 
cient example  is  known  to  us,  and  it  would  be  untrue  to  give  it  a 
place  as  a  type  of  the  colony  work  in  the  way  in  which  we  give 
a  place  to  the  "  stone-ender "  type   in    Providence. 

The    presence    of    carpenters,    like    Nicholas    Clark    of    Hartford 


Ifi  EARl.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

and  Francis  Stiles  of  Windsoi",  would  lead  us  to  expect  tliat  the 
dwellings  of  the  wealthier  settlers  —  such  men  as  the  Reverend 
Thomas  Hooker,  Governor  Haynes,  and  the  others  who  were  ad- 
dressed by  the  title  of  "Master"  —  would  be  somewhat  elaborate, 
and  would  express  the  traditions,  modified  by  what  the  craftsmen 
had  seen  or  learned  in  the  Bay,  which  the  carpenters  had  brought 
from  England.  We  have  further  warrant  for  this  belief  in  the  fact 
that  Georo-e  Wyllys,  one  of  the  wealthiest  of  the  original  settlers, 
sent  his  steward,  William  Gibbons,  to  Hartford  in  1636,  with  twenty 
men,  to  build  him  a  house  and  to  make  other  preparations  for  his 

coming. 

These  dwelling-houses  of  the  better  sort  during  the  first  period 
in  the  Connecticut  colony  were  of  a  well-marked  type,  the  plan  and 
the  end  elevation  of  which  we  have  given  in  .-i  and  the  view  be- 
side it  in  Figure  i,  and  which  we  have  already  described.  They 
were  sometimes  a  story  and  a  half  high,  but  generally  of  two 
stories.  The  second  story,  where  there  were  two,  presented  the 
same  plan  as  the  first,  but  the  rooms  were  larger,  for  the  wall  of 
this  story  generally  projected  about  eighteen  inches  beyond  that 
of  the  one  below  and  thus  formed  an  "overhang"  which,  with  the 
stone  chimney,  and  the  absence  of  the  lean-to  except  as  a  later 
addition,  is  a  marked  characteristic  of   this  first   period. 

No  example  of  a  story-and-a-half  house  of  this  time  has  come 
down  to  us,  though  we  know  that  they  existed.  Thomas  Nowell 
of  Windsor,  who  died  in  164S  and  left  an  estate  worth  /^36S, 
had  such  a  house,  for  his  inventory,'  after  mentioning  the  parlor 
and  the  kitchen,  speaks  of  the  "parlor  loft"  which  contained  a 
bed   worth    /s,   and   of    the   "  Kitchen    Lofts   and    Garrits." 


'  Conn.   Col.   Ki-corils,  vol.  I,  p.  507. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  17 

The  summer,  in  each  story  of  the  more  common  two- story 
dwellings,  ran,  as  we  have  already  explained,  parallel  with  the  front 
of  the  house.  The  walls  were  of  studs,  the  space  between  which 
was  filled  with  clay  mixed  with  hay,  while  upon  these  studs,  on  the 
outside,  clapboards  were  nailed  without  any  intermediate  boarding. 
The  roofs  were  steep,  and  were  sometimes  shingled  and  sometimes 
thatched. 

In  Hartford  itself  there  is  now  standing  only  one  house  which 
belongs  to  this  early  time.  There  are,  however,  in  the  neighbor- 
ing towns  several  examples  of  the  better  class  of  dwellings,  and 
from  all  these  we  shall  be  able  to  see  the  original  aspect  of  the 
valley  settlements.  Let  us  take  them  up  in  the  order  of  the 
dates,  as  nearly  as  these  can  be  ascertained  —  except  that  we  shall 
put  the  two  houses  without  overhangs  in  a  class  by  themselves — 
and  make  of  each  a  separate  study.  The  houses,  then,  which 
can  claim  to  belong  to  the  first  forty  years  of  the  Connecticut 
settlements    are  : 

I.  The    John    Clark    House,    Farmington,   c.   1645. 

n.  The    Gleason    House,    Farmlngton,   c.   1655. 

in.  The    Lewis    House,    Farmington,   c.   1660. 

IV.  The   Cowles    House,    Farmington,   c.  1660. 

V.  The    Whitman    House,    Farmington,   c.   1660. 

VI.  The    Moore    House,   Windsor,   c.   1664. 

VII.  The   Joseph   Whiting    House,    Hartford,   c.   1650. 

\'III.  The    Dorus    Barnard    House,    Hartford,   c.   1660. 


18 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Clack  no 

rAEAI/^OTO/l 


I.      The   John    Clark    House. 


This  house,  often  called  the  Porter  house,  stood  until  the  year 
iS8o  on  the  corner  of  High  street  and  the  Hartford  road  in  the 
village  of  Farmington.  It  was  built  before  1650  by  Robert  Wilson 
or  by  John  Steel,  and  was  bought  in  1657  by  the  John  Clark 
whose  name  we  have  oriven  it  and  in  whose  familv  it  lonsj  re- 
mained.  The  external  appearance  of  it,  as  shown  in  our  drawing, 
with  the  overhang -on  the  ends  as  well  as  on  the  front  and  with 
the  bracketed  overhang  in  the  gable,  marks  it  as  one  of  the  earliest 
of  an  early  class  of  houses.  While  there  were,  at  the  time  this 
dwelling  was  destroyed,  three  examples  of  the    bracketed   overhang 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  19 

group'  —  the   oldest  form   of    the    overhang   type  —  this   old   building 
was   without  doubt   the   most  venerable   of    them    all. 

From  the  hands  of  Erastus  Porter — from  whom  it  obtained  the 
name  of  the  Porter  house,  though  it  was  not  long  owned  by  the 
Porters'-  —  the  house  passed  into  those  of  John  Riley,  who  after 
using  it  for  some  time  as  a  barn  pulled  it  down.  The  destruction 
of  it  is  the  more  to  be  regretted  as  it  was  the  oldest  house  in  the 
colony,  and  since,  except  the  Hollister  and  the  Patterson  houses, 
there  seems  to  be  no  example  remaining  of  so  strong  an  end 
overhang  in  connection  with  one  on  the  front.  The 
combination  of  bracket  and  drop  in  the  overhangs 
is  not  common  ;  and  an  arransiement  such  as  the 
end  overhang  makes  necessary  when  both  bracket 
and  drop  are  used,  as  we  have  shown  in  Figure  5, 
is  unique.  The  drop  is  quite  elaborate — more  so 
than   any  other  we  know.      The   form   of  the   bracket      figure  j.-over- 

HANGS. 

on  the  front  we  are  not  quite  so  sure  of,  as  we  had      porter  or  clark 
to  make  the  drawing  from  a  small   photograph.      The 
essentials    are,   however,   correctly  given.      In   the    chapter  on   Con- 
struction   the    reader    will    find    an    explanation    of    the    method    of 
framinsc    this    overhancringc    corner. 

The  walls  of   this  house  are  of   the  stud  construction  typical  of 

'The  Gleason  and  the  Cowles  were  the  other  two  houses.      They  are  still  standing  {1S97). 

'For  the  history  of  this  property,  from  the  deed  to  Clark  in  1657  down,  we  are  indebted  to  Mr. 
Julius  Gay  of  Farmington.  The  earliest  entry  which  he  found  in  the  town  records  concerning  the 
house  is  as  follows  ; 

"Jan.  1657  to  John  Clark.  One  psell  on  which  his  dwelling  house  now  standeth  with  yeardes 
or  orchardes  thearein  being  contan  by  estma  Ten  acres  be  it  more  or  less  yt  wheare  of  he  bought 
of  John  Stell  &  ded  sum  tyme  belong  to  Robberd  Willson,  Abutting  on  porke  brook  on  the  East  & 
on  William  Smiths  land  on  the  West  &  on  John  Stells  land  on  the  South  and  on  the  highway  on 
the  North  " 

The  estate  was,  therefore,  well  enough  established  to  be  provided  with  orchards. 


20  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

the  colony.  These  studs  are  covered  on  the  north  end  of  the 
house  and  in  the  nortli  gable  with  wide,  overlapping  "  weather- 
boards," the  original  of  the  clapboards  which  cover  the  other  sides 
visible  in  the  photograph  as  we  have  reproduced  it  in  F'igure  4. 
In  the  second  story,  however,  whatever  may  have  been  the  case 
in  the  first,  the  clay  filling  is  lacking.  There  is  no  intermediate 
boarding  under  the  clapboards  such  as  we  find  in  a  modern  house. 
The  windows  of  the  house,  as  it  appears  in  the  drawing,  are 
not  original.  The  chimney,  which  rises  through  the  roof  a  little 
in  front  of  the  ridge  —  an  unusual  position  —  may  be  as  old  as  the 
house.  It  is  apparently  of  red  sandstone,  laid  up  in  small  blocks. 
It  has  a  thin  projecting  course  for  a  cap,  and  another,  just  below 
it,  for  a  necking,  while  a  third,  close  to  the  roof,  serves  to  shed 
the  water  and  to  prevent  it  from  running  down  the  face  of  the 
stack  into  the  house.  The  thinness  of  the  mass  in  proportion  to 
its  length  or  size  in  the  direction  of  the  ridge  —  a  trait  which  is 
characteristic  of  these  early  chimneys  —  is  quite  noticeable  here. 
The  lack  of  a  lean-to  is  also  very  conspicuous  in  the  photograph 
and  the  drawing.  There  may  have  been  one,  added  after  the 
house  was  built,  which  does  not  appear  in   the  view  we  have. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


21 


II. 


The    Gleason   House. 


Another  old  dwelling — which,  after  reaching  the  condition  of  a 
stable,  that  last  stage  of  existence  through  which  the  Clark  house 
passed,  is  now  waiting  a  similar  destruction  —  stands  in  the  rear  of 
Mr.  Porter's  house  on  the  east  side  of  the  main  street  of  Farming- 
ton,  about  a  hundred  yards  south  of  the  Hartford  road.  It  was 
built,  no  one  knows  by  whom,  somewhere  between  1650  and  i66o- 
Originally  it  stood  facing  west  on  the  main  street,  but  some  eighty 
or  a  hundred  years  ago  its  chimney  was  taken  down  and  it  was 
moved  back  a  hundred  feet  or  so  and  turned  with  its  face  to  the 
south.  It  is  a  fact  which  may  be  noted  here,  in  passing,  that 
while  in  Rhode  Island  the  earliest  houses  invariably  face  the  south 
no  matter  what  their  relation  to  the  street  may  thereby  become, 
so  that  it  is  safe  to  question   the  pretensions  to  age  of   any  house 


22 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


which  docs  not  so  face,  the  earhest  dwellings  in  Connecticut  and 
in  New  Haven  pay  more  attention  to  the  direction  in  which  the 
street  runs,  and  face  south  only  when  they  can  front  decorously 
upon   a   highway  which    runs   east   and    west. 

A  glance  at  the  first -story  plan,  which  we  give  in  Figure  7, 
will  explain  both  the  original  arrangement  and  the  present  con- 
dition of  the  house. 
At  its  present  west 
end,  the  north  end 
as  it  stood  upon 
the  street,  was  the 
parlor  —  }■  e  a  r  s  ago 
turned  into  a  wag- 
on-shed—  with  its 
summer  G,  its  end 
girt  //,  its  back  girt 
A',  front  girt  L,  and 
c  h  i  m  n  e  y  girt  M. 
All  the  beams  overhead  are  cased,  and  the  ceiling  is  plastered. 
Some  of  the  posts'  at  this  end  have  lost  their  casing  and  have 
been  patched  at  the  bottom,  while  the  end  sill  and  all  of  the 
original  floor  are  gone.  The  side  walls  are  lathed  and  plastered 
over  the  old  matched  and  moulded  boards  of  the  horizontal  "wains- 
cot" which  originally  covered  them.  The  plastering  of  the  ceiling 
is  also  an  addition  contemporary  with  the  casing  of  the  beams. 

The  original  stairs  have  disappeared  along  with  the  chimney, 
but  the  width  of  the  porch  or  entry  is  given  by  the  space  between 
the  chimney  girts  AI  and  N. 


*8-6-    Pv^TJIj      ^"VL'       UlieDcOEWAY 


f IK3T  i5  TORY 


FIGURC   7. 


'  The  letters  at  the   posts  are  referred  to  in  the  framing  details  given  in   Plate  I.   in  the  chapter 
on  Construction. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


23 


The  original  hall  at  the  eastern  end — the  southern,  of  course, 
when  the  building  stood  on  the  street — is  now  taken  up  by  empty 
stalls  for  horses  and  cattle.  It  shows  the  same  constructive  ar- 
rangement as  does  the  parlor  and,  like  that  room,  has  its  beams 
cased  and  its  walls  and  ceilings  plastered.  A  door,  which  has  on 
the  outside  a  casing  of  a  late  colonial  type,  opens  from  the  orig- 
inal southwest  corner,  now  at  the  southeast. 

This  old  room,  the  descendant  of  the  hall  in  the  old  English 
manor  house,    was    the 


Qleiason   MoU5E 


kitchen  as  well  as  the 
living-room  of  the 
dwelling.  More  con- 
stantly occupied  in  win- 
ter, it  would  naturally 
be  put  at  the  southern 
end  of  the  building. 
The  statelier  parlor — 
the  name  of  which  came 
into  domestic  architect- 
ure from  the  monastery, 
where,  as  the  word  it- 
self implies,  it  was  the 
r  o  o  m  i  n  w  h  i  c  h  the 
monks  were  allowed  to 
converse  —  was,  when 
not    employed     as     a 

sleeping   room,    used    for   a   dining    room    or  for   notable    gatherings 
like  weddings   or  funerals.' 


Figure  8. 


'The  parlor  of  our  early  houses  is  the  direct  descendant  of  the  solar  of  the  Saxon  and   Norman 
house.      See  the  chapter  on  The  Relation  of  Colonial  Architecture  to  English  Work. 


24 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Upstairs,  in  the  hall  chamber — the  parlor  chamber  has  its  walls 
wainscoted,  but  at  the  time  of  our  visit  was  half  full  of  hay  — 
can  be  seen  the  rough  and  almost  careless  construction  of  the  old 
house,  which  is  shown  in  the  sections,  Figures  8  and  9.  All  the 
floor  joists   and   the   boarding  of    the   original   attic   floor  are   gone. 

The  summer  in  the 
hall  chamber  is  in 
stronor  contrast  to 
the  rest  of  the  work, 
is  well  smoothed  and 
cleanly  chamfered 
with  plain  stops,  and 
shows  few  axe  marks. 
It  looks  as  though  it 
had    belonged   to   an 


older  house.  The 
end  girt  in  this 
room  is  cambered  — 
that  is,  is  deeper  in  the  middle  than  at  the  ends.  The  braces 
run  from  near  the  top  of  the  posts  down  to  the  end  girt  in  the 
second  floor,  which  is  just  the  reverse  of  what  we  see  in  Rhode 
Island.  The  walls  in  this  room  are  studded  and  are  covered  with 
clapboards  nailed  directly  to  the  studs  with  neither  outer  boarding^ 
clay  filling,  nor  inside  wainscoting.  As  we  have  just  said,  the 
workmanship,  except  in  the  summer,  which  may  have  come  from 
a  still   older  buildinor,   is   rude   in   the  extreme. 

The  roof,  though  old,  cannot  be  original  ;  for  the  Connecticut 
carpenters  preferred  roofs  of  a  pitch  even  steeper  than  forty -five 
degrees.  They  were  not  accustomed,  moreover,  so  early  as  this, 
to  do  away  with  the  collar -beams,  which  this  roof  lacks. 


0lEA5O/H  Houjse. 


Sectioaj 

Figure  9. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


25 


We  urge  the  reader  to  study  carefully  the  plans  and  sections 
of  this  house  and  especially  the  perspective  of  its  framing,  which 
we  give  in  Figure  lo.  The  names  of  the  rooms,  which  occur  con- 
stantly in  the  old  inventories,  and  the  terms  "  summer,"  "  girt," 
"  plate,"  "  rafter,"  and  so  on,  which  will  often  appear  in  these 
pages,  are  there  clearly  indicated  ;  so  that  by  a  little  study  the 
reader  will  obtain  a  clearer  idea  of  the  typical  house  and  of  the 
construction  of  it  than  he  could  gain  from  many  pages  of  text 
and   from   much   repetition. 

The  present  appearance  of  the  house  is  given  in  Figure  6.  It 
lacks  its  chimney  and  is  rather  dilapidated,  but  is  still  picturesque. 
It  has  an  overhang  on  the  front  and  one  in  each  gable,  but  none 
at  either  end  in  the  first  story  as  has  the  Clark  house.  In  the 
underside    of    the    plate,    which    projects    to    receive    a    barge -board 


\       ViEVr  or 

■p^'  GLEA50AI  Hou:5e" 

"^         FaEA\;NQTOAI 


Figure  io. 


26 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     IIDUSES. 


long  since  departed,  there  may  still  be  seen  at  the  southwest  cor- 
ner of  the  house  the  mortise  for  a  former  bracket  like  that  in  a 
similar  position    in   the    Clark   house. 

The  very  disrepair  and  ruin  of  the  house  were  of  the  greatest 
service  to  us,  for  we  were  thereby  enabled  to  study  the  framing 
with  considerable  ease.  In  Figure  1 1  we  give  a  drawing  of  the 
present  southeast  corner  —  showing  the  overhang  as  well  as  the 
bracket  and  the  end  of  the  post.  There  is  no  drop  here,  and  it 
is  hardly  probable  that  there  ever  was  one.  The  four  little  gouge- 
cuts  on  the  lower  edges  of  the  tapering  block  in  which  the  post 
ends  are  interesting.  They  do  not  seem  to  be  common.  The 
bracket  is  of  quite  a  common  form.  A  geometrical  drawing  of  it, 
with  measurements,  will   be   found   in  the   chapter  on    Construction. 

It  will  be  noted  that  this  house  had  no  lean-to,  and  we  think 
we  shall  show  that  during  this  period  the  lean-to,  although  it  ap- 
pears early  in  the  inventories,  is  always  an  addition  to  the  original 
house. 


Figure  h.— Overhang. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


27 


III.      The    Lewis    House. 


Few  visitors  to  the  Elm  Tree  Inn  at  Farmington  are  aware 
that  a  house  of  about  1660  is  concealed  at  the  centre  of  the  mass 
of  buildings  which  forms  the  present  hostelry.  At  the  end  of  the 
long  hall  which  runs  back  from  the  entrance  we  come  upon  the 
stairs  —  of  comparatively  modern  date  —  just  in  front  of  which  runs 
a  passage  at  right  angles  to  the  entrance  hall.  These  stairs  oc- 
cupy exactly  the  place  of  those  in  the  ancient  house.  The  present 
smoking-room  is  the 
original  hall,  as  the 
summer  overhead  and 
the  oven  —  probably 
built  into  an  older 
fireplace  —  still  pro- 
claim. The  parlor  is 
now  absorbed  in  the 
dining  room  of  the 
inn,  but  the  summer 
still  traverses  a  part 
of  the  ceiling  of  the 
new  room.  As  you 
stand    in    the    passage 

in  front  of  the  stairs,  you  are  in  the  entry  of  the  original  house ; 
and  if  you  face  toward  the  door,  with  your  back  to  the  stairs,  you 
will  see  above  you,  with  its  soffit  flush  with  the  rest  of  the  ceiling, 
the  ancient  overhang,  which  shows  even  the  edges  of  the  bottom 
board  of   the  second -story  front. 


^.Second  5fovy  CX^rt^a'^jJ* 

Lewis  H°v-5E:.  fa^/^)/<ctoh^^  -u^-  Dwn&eoon 

Pi'csar.t-    Passage-  [,'; 


v/7 


Nfw  Elvi 


Figure  12. 


28  EARLY     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES. 

There  is  also  an  end  overhang,  as  the  plan  shows,  which  can 
be  seen  on  the  outside  of  the  present  smoking-room.  It  is  small, 
however,  and  there  are  no  brackets  now  remaining  under  it. 

Who  built  the  house  we  do  not  know.  It  may  have  been 
Captain  William  Lewis,  whose  son  —  also  named  William  Lewis, 
one  of  the  schoolmasters  of  Farmington  —  undoubtedl)^  lived  here 
in    1704.'      It   belongs   somewhere   about    1660. 


'  "  Schoolmaster  William  lived  in  a  house  which  stood  on  or  very  near  the  site  of  the  Elm-Tree 
Inn,  and  was  one  of  the  seven  houses  which  the  town,  on  the  31st  day  of  March,  1704,  ordered  to 
be  fortified  and  supplied  with  powder,  lead  bullets,  flints  and  half-pikes." — Julius  Gay,  Schools  ami 
Schoobiiaslers  in  Farming; Ion  in   t/if   Olden    Time,   p.  21. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


29 


J) 


IV.      The    Cowles    House. 


This  house,  or  rather  one  half  of  it,  stands  on  the  western  side 
of  the  main  street  on  the  little  rising  ground  just  north  of  a  brook 
at  the  extreme  southern  end  of  the  village.  As  our  drawing-  shows 
it  is  a  house  of  the  class  which  includes  the  Porter  and  Gleason 
houses — that  is,  it  has  a  bracket  at  each  post  under  the  overhang. 
Two  only  of  these  brackets  now  exist,  the  third  is  not  in  its  place, 
and  the  fourth  was,  of  course,  on  the  northern  half  of  the  house 
which  was  cut  away  many  years  ago  and  moved  a  few  feet  further 
north,  where  it  now  stands  as  a  separate  tenement  —  a  rather 
exaggerated  reminder  of  the  colonial  fashion  of  bequeathing  the 
different  halves  of  a  house  to  different  persons.  The  entry  still 
remains  on  the  southern  house,  but  the  chimney  and  stairs  dis- 
appeared when  the  building  was  cut  in  two.  The  present  chimney 
in  each  of  the  houses  is  new. 


30  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

The  roof  of  the  house  as  it  is  at  j^rcsent  is  also  new.  The 
ancient  ridge  was  parallel  to  the  road,  and  originally  the  building 
must  have  closely  resembled  the  Gleason  house  as  that  dwelling 
appeared   in    the   early   days   wlien   it  stood   on   the   main   street. 

The  bracket  under  the  overhang  here  is  almost  exactly  the 
same  —  indeed  in  pattern  it  is  the  same  —  as  that  in  the  Gleason 
house.  There  is  no  drop  here  either,  though  it  is  not  safe  to 
say   that    none    ever    existed. 

The  date  of  this  house  we  can  fix  only  approximately  by  com- 
parison with  the  other  houses  of  its  class.  It  belongs,  with  the 
Gleason   house,   in   the   decade   between    1650  and    1660. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


81 


WHITnA/V  110U.5C 
r>kEni/NGTO/j 


V.      The   Whitman    House. 

On  High  street  in  Farmington,  about  three  hundred  yards  south 
of  the  spot  where  stood  the  Clark  house,  is  the  sober-colored  dwell- 
ing, the  last  of  the  three  ancient  houses,  all  possessing  overhangs, 
which,  within  the  memory  of  men  not  yet  old,  looked  westward 
from  the  eastern  side  of  the  thoroughfare.'  The  date  of  this  build- 
ing, now  known  as  the  Whitman  house,  it  is  impossible  to  fix  by 
any  documentary  evidence."  As  in  the  case  of  the  Gleason  house 
we  fall  back  upon  experience  and  careful  comparison  of  its  con- 
struction and  details  with  those  of  other  buildings.     A  good  suide 


'  These  three  houses  were  the  Clark  house  already  described,  now  destroyed,  the  Whitman  house, 
and  the  Joseph  Porter  house,  burned  January  15,  1886,  which  stood  south  of  the  Whitman,  "on  the 
northeast  corner  of  the  intersection  of  High  street  with  the  road  to  New  Britain." — Julius  Gay,  OU 
Houses  in  Farmington,   p.  Iq. 

-The  first  record  of  this  house  is  1720,  when  John  Stanley,  Senior,  sold  it  to  Captain  Ebenezer 
Steel. — Ibid. 


32  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

in  our  earliest  colonial  work  is  the  way  in  which  the  traditions 
brought  from  England  by  the  oldest  carpenters  became  modified — 
diluted,  as  it  were — as  the  lapse  of  time  and  as  the  changed  envir- 
onment begin  to  work  upon  them.  The  Clark  house  is  among  the 
original  dwellings  of  the  settlement.  Next  to  it  —  if  not  actually 
contemporary  with  it  —  is  the  Gleason,  which  lacks  one  tradition, 
the  end  overhang  in  the  second  story.  And  just  after  the  Gleason 
comes  this  house,  which  lacks  three  traditional  features — the  bracket 
under  the  gable,  the  end  overhang  in  the  second  story,  and  the 
bracket  under  the  second  story  on  the  front.  The  date  of  the 
building,   then,   is    about    1660. 

Though  not  the  oldest  house  in  the  Connecticut  colony,  it  is, 
at  least,  one  of  the  best  preserved,  for  it  is  still  inhabited  and 
retains  nearly  all  its  original  appointments  intact.  The  clapboard- 
ing  has  been  renewed,  the  first  story  has  been  plastered,  the  present 
windows,  as  the  marks  in  the  second-story  wainscot  show,  have  re- 
placed older  and  smaller  ones,  and  the  lean-to  has  been  added  with 
its  fireplace,  the  f^ue  whereof  has  been  built  up  against  the  back 
of  the  older  chimney  and  has  been  topped  out  with  the  present 
brickwork — a  modern  renewal — above  the  roof.  The  brown -stone 
top  of  the  old  stack  is  itself  a  rebuilding  with  lime  mortar.  The 
roof  of  the  main  house  is  also  a  renewal,  contemporary  with  the 
lean-to.  Otherwise  the  venerable  hoiise  is  in  the  shape  in  which 
the  carpenter  and  the  mason  left  it,  even  to  the  two  flights  of 
stairs  which  ascend  from  the  first  floor  to  the  garret,  and  the 
stone  steps  from  the  hall  by  which  you  may  still  reach  the  cellar 
under  the  parlor. 

The  plan  of  the  first  floor,  which  we  give  in  Figure  15,  will 
show  how  closely  this  house  resembles,  in  its  arrangement  and 
even   in    its   dimensions,  all   the   others   of   its  time.      In   fact,  one 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


33 


plan  would  almost  suffice  for  all  the  dwellings  in  the  colony.  It 
is  to  be  noted,  also,  that  one  of  the  rooms,  the  hall,  is  almost  al- 
ways longer  than  the  other,  the  parlor,  even  if  by  a  few  inches 
only,  an  arrangement  much  exaggerated  in  Rhode  Island  in  1730, 
when  the  builders  there  began  to  use  the  central-chimney  plan. 
The  summer  in  this  hall  is  not  cased — a  sure  proof  that  the  plas- 


LEAyNTO  -  ADDITIOAI 


WniTAAM  liOU3P 


FAKniAJGTo/i .    f  1 R3T  5T0RY.  ^ 


Fjolre  1;. 


tering  there  is  not  original  —  and  it  has  a  filleted  quarter- round 
for  its  chamfer.  The  door  to  the  cellar  opens  from  the  hall,  and 
this  door,  as  well  as  that  which  leads  into  the  entry,  is  original 
and  is  well  worth  study.  Each  door  is  composed  of  vertical  boards 
of  white  pine,  which  are  grooved  and  tongued  together  and  are 
secured  at  the  back  by  two  moulded  "battens"  or  strips  of  pine. 
The  boards  themselves,  of  the  doors  as  well  as  those  of  the  whole 


u 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


partition  across  the  firei^lace  end  of  the  room  —  a  partition  which 
is  constructed  the  same  way  as  are  the  doors  —  have  a  strip  of 
moulding    worked    on    their   edges. 

The  steps  to  the  cellar  are  of  stone  and  are  not  very  steep. 
They  are  wider,  also,  than  those  in  southern  Rhode  Island,  as  are 
the  stairs  to  the  second  story,  which,  in  their  original  form  and  in 

good  preservation,  still 
offer  a  safe  if  some- 
what shaky  ascent  to 
the  "  chambers."  The 
old  mode  of  supporting 
them,  which  the  reader 
will  find  fully  detailed 
in  the  chapter  on  Con- 
struction, is  clearly  to 
be  seen  from  beneath 
on  the  way  to  the  cel- 
lar, and  its  quaintness 
should  commend  it  to 
all  interested  in  the  ways  of  our  ancestors,  even  if  they  have  no 
especial   love  for  good   framing. 

The  hall  chamber,  as  the  room  over  the  hall  is  called,  is  not 
plastered,  but  is  "  wainscoted  "  on  the  sides  with  wide  horizontal 
boards  of  white  pine,  tongued  and  grooved  and  moulded,  as  in  the 
Gleason  house.  In  the  front  or  western  wall,  on  each  side  of  the 
present  window,  are  the  marks  which  show  the  filling- up  of  an 
older  opening,  wider  and  lower,  though  higher  from  the  floor  of 
the  room.  This  was  probably  the  original  window  of  the  house, 
for  there  are  cases  where  these  old  frames  —  not  the  sash  —  have 
been  taken  from   buildings  within  forty  or  fifty  years,  and    the   size 


.^CnCVITMEO'CHIrtrtEY 
jMOCTMTO^OVTH. 


WHlTrtKH  WWX 


Figure  i6. 


The  witlie.  or  vertical  partition  in  the  upper  part  of  the 
chimney,  is  conjectural. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


35 


of  it  shows  that  it  was  a  double  window,  separated   by  an    upright 
wooden  bar  or  niullion. 

The  chimney  below  the  roof  is  of  field  stone,  well  selected, 
generally  flat.  The  peculiarity  of  it,  which  strikes  quite  forcibly 
one  familiar  with  the  work  in  the  other  New  England  colonies,  is 
that  the  stones  are  laid  not  in  mortar  of  lime,  even  of  the  kind 
called  "shell  lime,"  but  in  clay  mixed  with  hay  after  the  fashion 
of  the  old  English  plasterers. 

The  house  at  present,  as  the  drawing  shows,  has  a  lean-to. 
That  this  is  a  later  addition  is  proved  by  the  way  in  which  the 
flue  of  the  lean  -  to  fireplace  is  built  up  along  the  back  of  the  old 
stone  chimney.  If  anyone  requires  further  proof,  let  him  look  be- 
tween the  chimney — which  is  not  sheathed  at  all  on  the  stairs  — 
and  the  partition  which  shuts  off  the  hall  chamber,  where  there  is 
no  fireplace.  He  will  see,  if  it  is  not  too  dark  —  and  if  it  is,  let 
him  climb  over,  as  we  did,  on  the  back  of  the  chimney  —  the 
original  outside  wall  on  the  back  of  the  house,  on  a  line  with 
the  hatched  wall  in  Figure  i6,  with  its  clapboards,  still  in  place, 
nailed   directly  to   the   studs,   exactly  as   in    the    Gleason   house. 

There  is  a  small  overhang  in  the  gable 
of  this  house,  but  none  on  the  end  at  the 
second -floor  level.  That  on  the  front,  how- 
ever, ranks  as  one  of  the  best  that  remain 
to  us,  and  is  one  of  the  very  few  which  have 
all  the  drops  intact.  There  are  no  brackets, 
an  omission  which  marks  the  house  as  later 
than  the  others  we  have  been  discussing. 
The  shape  of  the  drop,  which  is  given  in 
Figure  i  7.  is  very  elegant,  and  the  workman- 
ship  of    the   quaint    old    forms   is   very   good. 


|WhiT7AA\'  HoV.5C 
Figure  17.— The  Drop. 


36  EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Those  who  are  interested  in  the  wood- work  of  those  times  may 
compare  the  effect  with  the  means  used  to  attain  it  by  referring 
from  this  drawing  to  Figure  102,  which  will  give  a  measured 
drawing  of  the  drop,  and  to  Plate  VII,  where  the  framing  of  the 
whole  overhang  in  the  Gleason  house  is  analyzed. 

The  chimney  above  the  roof  is,  like  that  of  the  Clark  house, 
of  red  sandstone  —  or,  as  it  is  roughly  called,  brownstone  —  laid  in 
small  blocks,  with  wide  joints  filled  with  lime  mortar.  It  is  a 
rebuilding,  for  the  present  roof  is  of  too  low  a  pitch  to  be  the 
original  covering.  There  are  three  projecting  courses  at  the  top 
of  this  chimney  for  a  cap,  but  there  is  no  necking.  The  stack  is 
low,  and,  in  its  original  form,  without  the  present  brick  stack  be- 
hind it,  was  much  longer  in  plan  than  its  width.  Unlike  the 
Clark  house  chimney,  the  bulk  of  it  is  behind  the  ridge,  as  the 
face  of  the  stack,  with  the  projecting  strip  or  water-table,  is  only 
a  few  inches  in  front  of  the  peak  of  the  roof.  This  projecting 
"dripstone,"  as  it  may  be  called,  is  clearly  visible  in  the  drawing 
of  the  house. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


37 


fl"^^ili:^«!ii^ii^' 


\'I.      The    AIoore    House. 

The  Moore  house,  one  of  the  oldest  in  Connecticut,  and  one 
which  after  sundry  migrations  has  finally  taken  its  place  as  a  tene- 
ment house  somewhat  west  of  its  original  situation,  stood,  when  it 
was  built,  on  the  west  side  of  Broad-street  Green  in  the  pleasant 
old  town   of  Windsor. 

Stiles'  History  of  ]Vindsor  attributes  the  house  to  Deacon  John 
Moore,  who  is  said  to  have  given  it  to  his  son  at  the  latter's  mar- 
riage in  1690.'  The  house,  however,  though  it  was  no  doubt  given 
to  the  young  man,  as  averred  by  the  historian,  is,  on  the  architect- 
ural evidence,  far  older  than   1690.      It  is  one  of  the  early  type  of 


'Stiles,  A  History  of  Ancient  WinJsor,  vol.  I.  p.  431.  In  volume  II,  p.  501,  the  date  of  this 
marriage  is  given  as  February  8,  1693-4,  and  the  John  then  married  is  called  the  grandson  of  Deacon 
John. 


38  EARLY  CONNF.CTICUT  HOUSES. 

frame  houses  in  the  colony,  and  belongs  in  the  first  period.  It 
was  probably  built  by  [ohn,  junior,  or  by  his  father,  the  Deacon, 
for  him  —  whence  the  tradition  that  it  was  a  gift  —  at  the  time  of 
the  former's  marriage,  September  21,    1664. 

It  has  the  overhang  and  the  drop  under  the  second-story  posts, 
and  ranks  with  the  Whitman  and  the  other  houses  in  Farmington 
as  one  of  the  patriarchs  of  the  Connecticut  river  settlement. 

We  give  a  plan  in  I^igure  19,  and  in  Figure  18  a  restoration. 
Two  only  of  the  drops  remain.  One,  at  one  end,  was  sawn  off 
when  the  house  was  abutted  against  another  to  form  an  ell.  The 
other,  at  the  other  end,  was  cut  off  only  a  short  time  ago  by  a 
curiosity -hunter.  Those  that  remain  are  beautiful  specimens,  dif- 
ferent from  any  others  we  know.  Figure  iS,  in  which  the  drop  is 
given  in  perspective,  may  be  compared  with  the  measured  drawing 
in   Figure   102. 

The  alterations  the  house  has  just  undergone  have  changed  its 
appearance  considerably  from  that  which  it  presented  when  on  the 
main  street;  but  its  present  owner'  has  kept  the  main  lines,  and 
the  house  can  still  be  studied.  To  his  great  credit  he  has  kept 
the  old  gable  overhang  on  the  south  and  has  put  back  the  original 
brackets  which  were  under  it.  To  his  kind  assistance  are  due  the 
measurements  we  give  of  these,  which,  in  shape,  resemble  the  ex- 
amples preserved  in  the  museum  at  Deerfield,  Mass.,  which  were 
taken  from  the  famous  Sheldon  house  in  that  town.  These  in 
Windsor  are  the  only  gable  brackets  we  know  of  now  e.xisting  in 
Connecticut.  There  were  brackets,  it  will  be  remembered,  under 
the  gable  of  the  demolished  Clark  house  in  Farmington,  and  the 
mortise  for  one   still   e.xists   in   the   projecting  plate  of   the  Gleason 

'  Mr.  Horace  C.  Clark. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


39 


>* 

;G 

;; 

-nr- 

■■":  -d'"" 

— 

■y:-^-VA? 

i'\ 

::          >    : 

Ji 

• .    » 

ill 

•  I          ■*       ; 

— 

"";  I 

: :           .1     ; 

■  •                  -la.     ; 

;_ ^_ 

J^;. 

1^" 

Jt^  ^. 

«■ 

_jM;^ 

-ii. 

:H 

^E 

^ 

,  ^'.c     _ 

.-- 

-ii i?^^ 

:"T 


.v.''":!.';]*!!-;. 


MOOET  HoV5E      Skeleton  Pu^a. 

VYIAIDSOR  =^= 


u. f»=  cil!^ 


Figure  iq. 


house,  though  the 
bracket  itself  has  dis- 
appeared. It  will  be 
seen,  in  Figure  105, 
that  the  Windsor  ex- 
ample is  superior  in 
contour  to  that  in  the 
Clark  house,  which  is 
of  the  same  sreneral 
outline  as  the  form 
used  in  that  house  and  in  the  Cowles  and  the  Gleason  for  the 
second -stor}'  overhang   on   the  front. 

In  the  migrations  of  the  old  building  the  chimney  has  disap- 
peared. Probably  two  successive  stacks  —  the  earlier  of  stone,  the 
later  of  brick  —  have  been  demolished.  The  brick  chimney  is 
shown  as  of  herring-bone  work  in  the  sketch  which  Stiles  in  his 
History  gives  of  the  house.  Though  this  drawing  seems  to  have 
been  from  memory  and  is  inaccurate  in  several  points,  the  herring- 
bone is  very  likely  to  be  correct.  Still,  we  have  restored  the  stone 
top  as  that  of  the  original  stack. 

The  inside  of  the  house  is  extremely  interesting  from  the  fact 
that  we  have  here  one  of  those  rare  examples  of  crossed  summers, 
the  only  instance  we  know  of  in  the  present  territory  of  Connec- 
ticut, and  one  of  the  ver\'  few  which  exist  in  all  New  England. 
The  regular  summer,  that  parallel  with  the  front  of  the  house, 
runs  through  entire.  The  other  is  in  two  halves,  framed  into  this 
main  one,  and  is  of  smaller  size.  All  are  of  hard  pine,  as  is  the 
rest  of   the  frame  in  this  house. 


40 


EARLY     COXXECTICUT     HOUSES. 


VII.      The   Joseph   Whiting    House. 


We  have  neglected  the  strict  line  of  chronology  in  the  treatment 
of  the  last  houses  we  have  been  discussing,  in  order  to  follow  the 
development  of  the  framed  overhang  through  its  various  examples. 
Let  us  now  turn  back  and  consider  a  house  which,  though  the 
second  story  of  it  does  not  project,  is,  and  for  a  long  time  has 
been,  the  oldest  house  in  Hartford  —  a  house  which  can  rank  with 
the  Clark  in  the  first  half  of  the  seventeenth  century,  if,  indeed,  it 
do  not  date  from  the  very  first  years  of  the  settlement  on  the 
banks   of  the   Little   River. 

Not  all  the  two -story  houses  in  the  Connecticut  colony  were 
built  with  the  overhang.  The  existence  of  that  feature  depended 
partly,  perhaps,  on  the  personal  taste  of  the  owner  and  on  the 
memories   he   had   brought   with   him   from    his    old    English   home. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  41 

It  depended  far  more  on  the  carpenter  the  owner  employed  and 
on  the  part  of  England  in  which  that  carpenter  had  learned  his 
trade.  A  town -bred  craftsman,  for  instance,  was  more  likely  to 
use  the  overhang  than  was  one  trained  in  the  country,  where  pro- 
jecting upper  stories  were  not  so  common.'  Perhaps  Francis  Stiles, 
who  came  from  London  and  who  very  soon  had  apprentices  here, 
was  responsible  for  the  overhangs  of  the  houses  we  have  been 
studying.  His  apprentices  would  naturally  follow  his  ways.  Again, 
the  overhangs  in  different  parts  of  England  vary;  so  that,  fully  to 
account  for  the  use  of  the  overhang  or  of  the  straight  front  in 
any  case,  or  for  the  use  of  one  kind  of  overhang  in  preference  to 
another,  we  must  know  who  our  earliest  carpenters  were — whether 
they  came  from  Shropshire  or  from  Kent,  or  from  one  district  or 
another,  and  whether  they  were  townsmen  or  rustics. 

Captain  Joseph  Whiting,  Treasurer  of  the  Colony  of  Connecti- 
cut,"^ a  man  of  considerable  importance  in  the  public  life  of  his 
day,  once  dwelt  in  the  old  house  which  now  stands  on  the  east 
side  of  Main  street  in  Hartford,  next  north  of  the  building  on  the 
corner  of  Charter  Oak  avenue.  It  has  sadly  descended  since  that 
day.  The  lower  story  has  been  converted  into  a  store  for  liquor, 
at  present,  while  above  are  tenements  accessible  from  the  street  by 
a  flight  of  steps  along  the  original  front  of  the  building  ;  for  this 
house — unlike  most  other  old  Hartford  dwellings — does  not  face 
upon  the  street.  Probably  it  never  did,  but  always  looked  out  to- 
ward the  south  upon  the  garden  which  lay  between  it  and  what 
was   then   the   highway  to   the   South    Meadow. 

Although  treasurer  Joseph  Whiting  owned  this  dwelling,  he 
did    not    build    it.      He    bought    the    estate    in    1682    from    Zachary 

'  S.   O.   .■\ddy.    The  Evolution  of  the  English  House,  p.  io2.       This  is  a  very  interesting  book. 
'Under  the  Charter,  from  1678  to  1717.      He  was  a  son  of  William  Whiting.  Senior. 


42 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Sandford,  who  liad  acquired  it  in  1667  from  Francis  Barnard,  who, 
in  turn,  had  purcliascd  it  in  1650  as  part  of  the  estate  of  Andrew 
Bacon.  It  was  Francis  Barnard  wlio  built  the  house,  if,  indeed,  it 
was  not  standing  when  he  bought  the  land.  His  dwelling,  with 
gardens,  is  mentioned  in  the  record  of  the  land  belonging  to  him, 
and  each  succeeding  record  of  the  property,  down  to  Whiting's 
title,   names   the   dwelling-house   or  messuage   thereon.' 

As  the  reader  may  judge  from  the  brief  description  and  from 
the  drawings,  the  house  has  been  greatly  altered  both  outside  and 
in.      The    windows    are    new,   and   have   over   them    quite    elaborate 

pediments  which  date 
f  r  o  m  the  time  of 
George  the  Third. 
A  lean-to  has  been 
built  on,  as  is  evi- 
dent from  the  change 
of  pitch  in  the  roof — 
a  chansje  made  also 
on  the  front  to  ac- 
commodate the  larger 
and  higher  windows.  The  old  front  door  has  been  closed  up  — 
though,  of  course,  this  was  done  in  our  own  day ;  and  at  some 
early  date  an  addition  was  built  at  the  eastern  end.  The  fact 
that  this  east  end  is  much  plainer  than  the  west,  because  it  was 
kept  away  from  the  street,  shows  that  the  house,  if  it  has  been 
moved  at  all,  was  turned  from  the  street  before  the  new  windows 
with  their  ornamented  heads  were  put  in.  The  original  floor  in 
the   first  story  is   probably  gone.      The  old  framing  is   intact ;    but 


fkiyr 


-  Plaai  » 

Figure  21.— The  Joseph  Whiting   House. 


'  See  Appendix  I. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  43 

the  chimney  and  the  front  stairs  have  been  taken  out  to  gain 
space  for  the  store.  The  roof,  though  repaired,  is  original.  It 
is  very  steep,  and   retains   its    collar-beams. 

Joseph  Whiting's  inventory,  taken  F"ebruary  26,  1 716-17,'  men- 
tions the  following  rooms:  the  parlor,  the  dwelling  room  — the  hall 
is  meant,  the  old  word  was  goino-  out  of  use — the  kitchen  and  the 
little  bedroom.  The  kitchen  shows  that  the  lean-to  had  been  added 
before  Whiting's  death,  as  the  little  bedroom  shows  that  the  addi- 
tion at  the  eastern  end  of  the  house,  an  addition  which  has  no 
summer  in  the  first  story,  is  also  earlier  than  1716.  The  little 
chimney  room  it  is  not  easy  to  place.  It  was  perhaps  one  of  the 
rooms  at  one  side  of  the  kitchen,  as  we  shall  see  in  later  plans, 
with   an   added  chimney  in   it. 

In  the  second  story  are  :  the  parlor  chamber,  the  little  chamber 
—  probably  over  the  little  bedroom  —  the  middle  chamber — which 
was  over  the  dwelling  room  or  hall,  and  which,  by  its  very  name, 
shows  that  it  was  the  parlor,  and  not  the  hall,  which  was  toward 
the  street  —  the  lean-to  chamber,  and  the  kitchen  chamber.  This 
unusual  naming  of  two  rooms  where,  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
there  was  but  one,  shows  that  the  space  under  the  lean-to  roof 
had    been   divided. 

The  garret  and  the  cellar  are  also  mentioned  ;  and,  outside  the 
house,  the  workshop  and  the  "  old  shopp." 

Of  these  rooms  only  the  hall  and  the  parlor  belong  to  the 
original  dwelling.      Whiting  had   added  all   the  others. 

From  one  entry  we  know  the  value  of  the  property  :  "  The 
Mantion  House  and  homestead  one  rood  with  the  barn  stable  and 
out  houses    /!^i55." 


""  Hartford  Probate  Recortts,  vol.  IX. 


44 


EAKLV     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


MAKirUKD 


VIII.      The    Dorus    Barnard    House. 

There  was  —  till  lately  —  another  house  in  Hartford  which  was 
built  in  the  first  period,  and  built  without  the  overhang.  This  — 
the  Dorus  Barnard  house  —  stood  on  Retreat  avenue,  opposite  the 
Retreat  itself,  and  thus  on  the  northern  side  of  the  street.  It  was 
built  in  1659  or  1660  by  Robert,  son  of  Governor  John  Webster. 
It  took  its  present  name  from  Captain  John  Barnard's  son  Dorus, 
who  owned  it  in  the  early  part  of  this  century.  It  was  demolished 
in  the  summer  of   1899.' 

As  the  perspective  shows,  the  old  roof  had  been  replaced  by 
one  of  much  lower  pitch,  and  the  windows  were  large  and  of  late 
date.     There  was  no  lean-to  when  we  saw  the  house,  though  some 


'For  a  complete  history  of  the   property,   kindly  communicated   to  us   by  Dr.    Henry  Barnard  of 
Hartford,  see  Appendix   II. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


45 


late  sheds  have  been  built  up  against  the  outside  wall  on  the  back 
of  the  dwelling,  probably  to  replace  a  lean-to  which  Dr.  Barnard 
says  existed  within  his  memory  ;  and  there  was,  as  we  have  especi- 
ally noted,  no  overhang. 

Inside  the  house,  in  the  south  room  —  the  original  hall,  which 
is  so  designated  on  the  plan  in  Figure  23  —  the  beams  were  cased 
and  the  ceiling  and  parts  of  the  walls  were  plastered.  A  wainscot 
—  not  of   the   early  type  as  we   have  it  in  the   Whitman  house,  but 


DoEV3  Ba!?/^AR_D  MoU3fj' 

-    "-^-'^        yi5i3T5TOR.VPLA^. 


f<. 


Figure  23 


one  with  wide  panels  —  covered  three  sides,  of  the  room  to  the 
height  of  the  window-sills  ;  while  the  fourth  side,  that  which 
contained  the  fireplace,  consisted  entirely  of  panelling  of  a  very 
good  design.  The  difference  we  have  just  noted  between  this 
panelling  and  the  archaic  "  wainscot "  in  the  Whitman  house 
renders  it  certain  that  the  panelled  work  was  not  so  old  as  the 
building. 

The  girts  had  been  cut  out  for  the  window-heads,  which  shows 
that  the  openings  and  sash  shown  in  the  view  were  not  original. 
Few  people  realize  how  small  ancient  windows  were. 


40 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


The  plastcriniij,  too,  which  fitted  around  these  windows,  was 
contemporary  with  them  and  not  with  the  house.  Both  plaster 
and  panelling-,  which  was  of  a  very  old  form,  were  put  in  at  the 
same   time   during   the   first   third    of    the   eighteenth   century. 

The  cellar  was  under  the  north  room — the  original  parlor — and 
it  was  reached  from  the  hall  by  a  flight  of  stone  steps  in  front  of 
the  chimney.  It  is  noticeable  that  the  door  to  the  cellar,  so  far 
as  we  have  seen,  very  rarely  opens  out  of  the  front  entry  or  porch 
— a  thing  extremely  common   in    Rhode    Island. 

The  chimney  of  this  house  was  built  of  stone  up  to  the  level 
of  the  second  floor.  Above  that  the  original  stone  stack  had  been 
replaced  with  brick.     This  must  be  quite  an   early  example  of   the 


^ 


'{hi' 


"r^Ti 


/- Stairway  ' 


— ^3<,.,(-  -!.i;2.tS  Pj-AA*  OT-AtTIC  U-OOR.  T^eAAAl  /^G 


JU 


DoR«5  DaRMARD  HOV.5E- 


1^^ 


llARiroKJ) 


Figure  24. 


use  of  this  material  ;  for  the  brick,  which  were  of  large  size — and 
this  is  itself  a  sign  of  early  date — were  laid  in  a  mortar  made  not 
of  lime  and  sand,  but  of  yellow  clay  mixed  with  hay. 

The    stone    stage    of    this    stack    had    a   peculiarity   which,   in    a 
two-room  house,  we  have  never  met  elsewhere.      The  back  of  the 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  47 

chimney,  as  will  appear  in  Figure  23,  was  on  the  outer  line  of 
the  building ;  so  that,  instead  of  hiding  behind  the  wooden  wall, 
the  stonework  showed  on  the  outside  of  the  house.  The  lean-to 
covered  it,  of  course,  but  it  was  the  original  disposition  or  a  res- 
toration thereof,  otherwise  it  would  have  had  a  fireplace.  This 
lack  of  a  fireplace  shows,  unless  there  was  one  which  has  been 
filled    up,   that   the   lean-to   was   a  very  late   addition. 

In  Figure  24  we  give  the  framing  of  the  garret  floor.  It  re- 
sembles in  construction  what  is  left  of  that  of  the  Gleason  house, 
with  the  tops  of  the  girts  rising  above  the  tops  of  the  plates,  and 
the  usual  dovetail  joints  with  which  the  summers  are  framed  into 
the  chimney  girts.  It  is  peculiar  in  that  the  floor  joists  rest  upon 
the  plates,  instead  of  framing  into  them  with  the  tops  of  both  the 
plates  and  the  joists  on  the  same  level. 

The  roof,  both  in  frame — Figure  25 — and  in  covering,  is  com- 
paratively new. 

The  frame  of  the  building  —  unlike  that  of  its  ancient  fellow, 
the  John  Barnard  house  — seemed  sound  and  strong;  and  there 
was  no  structural  reason  why  the  house  should  not  have  been 
preserved    for    many    years. 


wTlal*- 


FiGURE  25.— DoRUS  Barnard. 


48  EARi.v    coNNECTirrr    houses. 

Wc  have  now  the  type  of  the  well-to-do  houses  in  the  Con- 
necticut colony  during-  the  first  period  —  the  years,  that  is,  from 
1635  to  1675.  With  the  restorations  in  mind  which  we  have 
placed  before  our  readers,  we  can  easily  picture  the  appearance 
of  Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Wethersfield — the  old  valley  settlements 
— and  of  tlie  newer  towns  which  spread  eastward  and  westward 
from   them. 

We  can  now  proceed  to  study  the  changes  which  time,  the 
new  problems,  and  the  waning  of  the  older  traditions  brought 
about    in    the    architecture    of    colonial    Connecticut. 


CHAPTER    III 


THE   SECOND    PERIOD    IN    THE   CONNECTICUT   COLONY. 


'675-1700. 


LTHOUGH  Connecticut  suf¥ered  little,  directly,  from 
King  Philip's  War,  yet  the  colony,  which  had  shared 
with  the  othcns  the  danger  of  extermination,  and  had 
sent  to  the  winter  campaign  its  quota  of  troops,  shared  the  relief 
which  the  Swamp  P'ight  brought  to  all  southern  New  England. 
In  Rhode  Island,  and  in  parts  of  Massachusetts,  much  rebuilding 
had  to  be  done  as  the  result  of  Indian  forays;  and  this  contributed 
something  to  a  change  of  style,  or  gave  an  opportunity  for  it,  since 
it  would  have  come  in  any  case.  Thus,  in  Connecticut,  where  no 
villages  or  farm  houses  suffered  much  from  fire  in  Indian  hands, 
we  find  that  the  causes  which  tended  to  make  the  year  1675  a 
milestone  in  our  architectural  history  were  at  work  as  in  the 
other   colonies. 

All  divisions  in  architectural  history  are  arbitrary.  Styles  pro- 
gress gradually  and  steadily,  if  slowly;  and  any  year  which  is  taken 
as  marking  a  change  of  fashion  must  be  considered  as  an  average 
of  several  on  either  side  of  it.     The  causes  at  work  operate  under 


50  EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 

better  conditions  in  one  place  than  in  another.  In  this  district 
imitation  hastens  progress ;   in  that  district  conservatism   retards  it. 

So  it  is  with  our  date  of  1675.  The  last  quarter  of  the  seven- 
teenth century  shows  work  different  from  that  of  the  -first  forty  or 
fifty  years  after  the  settlements;  and  this  is  true  of  all  New  Eng- 
land. The  dates  of  the  houses,  as  nearly  as  those  uncertain  facts 
can  be  ascertained,  point  to  this  year  as  a  good  average  for  the 
change. 

We  have  already  hinted  at  the  causes  which  worked  to  bring 
about  these  changes.  They  were,  principally,  increased  wealth  and 
changed  habits  of  life  and  work.  The  former  operated  to  encourage 
the  enlargement  of  the  houses,  the  addition  of  more  rooms,  a  more 
uniformly  comfortable  style  of  living.  Without  it  no  change  would 
have  been  probable,  for  the  house  plan  of  the  earlier  time  sur- 
vived, as  we  shall  see,  into  the  period  of  which  we  write.  The 
other  causes  —  the  changes  of  habit  —  were  inevitable  in  the  new 
country.  Life  was  necessarily  different  from  what  it  had  been  in 
England ;  and  the  new  generation  which  had  come  up  took  to  the 
new  existence  with  no  homesickness  and  with  less  struggle  than 
its  elders  had  endured.  The  direct  English  tradition  was  some- 
what weakened.  The  older  settlers  were  passing  away,  and  the 
current  of  migration  from  England  had  slowed  or  stopped.  A 
new  wav  of  livins:  —  thoufrh  not  a  startling  change  —  drifted  in, 
which  suited  those  of  the  new  generation  —  men  who  had  never 
seen    old    England. 

With  the  increase  of  wealth  there  had  been  also  a  growth  of 
the  community,  and  this  brought  new  buildings  and  new  —  or,  at 
least,  different  —  problems.  And  the  changes  in  the  colonists 
brought  new  ways  of  meeting  these  problems.  The  old  carpenters 
were  dead,  and  the  new  work  had  to  be  done  by  their  apprentices 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  51 

and  by  the  apprentices  of  these  apprentices,  who,  in  the  new  en- 
vironment—  which  was  all  they  had  ever  known — had  ceased  to 
cling  to  some  traditions  which,  to  their  old  masters,  were  of  the 
essence   of    the   craft. 

Again,  the  union  of  the  whole  State  under  the  Charter  may 
have  done  something  to  lessen  the  differences  in  construction  and 
in  design  which  had  marked  the  formerly  separate  settlements. 

These  changes  of  which  we  have  spoken  were  not  great.  We 
shall  see  that  clearly.  But  the  old  framed  overhang  stops  entirely. 
Another  form  in  which  the  projection  is  hewn  out  of  the  post 
comes  in  from  New  Haven.'  In  many  cases  —  more  than  in  the 
first  period  —  the  overhang  is  not  used  at  all.  Brick  came  into 
use  during  this  period ;-  and  we  see  the  stone  chimney,  except 
in  remote  places,  gradually  give  way  before  the  new  material. 
Lime  appears,  also,  during  this  time,'^  and  with  it  the  plastering 
for  which,  rather  than  for  mortar,  it  seems  principally  to  have 
been  used.  Plastering  was  at  first  confined  to  the  wealthier 
houses,  and  to  the  side -walls  of  these.  It  can  hardlv  have  been 
widespread    until    late    in    this   period   and   early  in    the   next. 

The  great  change  in  this  time,  however,  was  in  the  plan.  It 
consisted  in  the  addition  of  a  kitchen  and  of  other  rooms  at  the 
back  of  the  two  rooms  of  the  older  tvpe  of  plan  —  an  addition 
covered  by  a  lean-to  roof  and  built,  rooms  and  roof,  as  an  in- 
tegral part  of  the  house,  and  not,  as  in  the  previous  period,  as  a 
later  construction. 

The  existence  of  this  enlarged  plan  appears  very  clearly  in  the 


'  See  Chapter  IX,  under  "  Overhang  " 

-In  16S5.     .See  Chapter  IX,  under  "Brick."     The  material  was  older  than  this,  but  it  was  not 
in  general  use. 

*In  1679.     See  Chapter  IX,  under  "Lime." 


52  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

inventories,'  but  it  is  only  from  actual  examples  that  we  can  see 
that  the  lean-to  of  this  time  differs  from  those  of  the  previous 
period  in  that  it  is  built  with  the  house.  Nor  is  it  always  easy 
to  see  this  ;  for  the  old  type,  one  room  deep,  survived  into  this 
period  also,  and  the  lean-to  was  added  to  it  in  this  time  as  before, 
and,  as  the  construction  of  the  incorporated  lean-to  does  not  differ 
in  Connecticut  —  as  it  does  in  the  Benjamin  house,  Milford,  for  in- 
stance, in  the  New  Haven  colony — from  that  of  the  added  lean-to, 
we  have  to  be  quite  careful  in  deciding  what  the  character  of  any 
example  may  be. 

The  houses  we  shall  discuss  in  this  period  are  : 

I.      The    Hollister    House,    South    Glastonbury,   c.   1680. 
H.      The    Patterson    House,    Berlin,   c.   1680. 
III.      The    John    Barnard    House,    Hartford,   c.   16S0. 


'Joseph  Nash.  September  3,  1678. — Parlor,  parlor  chamber,  east  chamber  over  the  haule,  garrets, 
leantoe  chamber,  kitchin,  2nd  cellar,  shop.     Estate  /'419. 

Joseph  Haines,  Hartford,  December  4,  1679. — Parlor  chamber,  porch  chamber,  hall  chamber, 
parlor,  closset,  hall,  kitchen,  inward  cellers,  outward  cellers,  cheese  chamber,  little  chamber,  garret. 
Homestead  with  house,   barns,  etc.,  ;^250. 

James  Eglesto.v,   December  l,   1679. — Upper  chamber,   inner  chamber. 

James  Richards,  Hartford,  June  11,  1680. — Parlor,  hall,  space  room  (sic),  kitchen,  green  cham- 
ber, parlor  chamber,  porch  chamber,  space  chamber  (sic),  kitchen  chamber,  parlor  chamber  (mentioned 

again?),  garret  chamber.     Estate  ;^7385  o6.r  lOi/. 

—Hartford  Probate  Records,  vol.  IV.      MS. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


I.      The    Hollister    House. 


All  the  houses  of  the  first  period  in  which  the  second  story 
projected  have  represented  a  single  type  of  overhang,  and  that  has 
been  what  we  may  call  the  framed  type.  We  have  now  to  con- 
sider two  houses  —  so  far  as  we  have  seen,  the  only  specimens  of 
their  kind  now  standing  in  the  Connecticut  colony  —  which,  while 
otherwise  they  do  not  vary  from  the  house  of  the  second  period 
in  this  jurisdiction,  belong,  so  far  as  the  overhang  is  concerned,  to 
quite  a  different  family.  These  dwellings  —  the  Hollister,  which 
was  built  with  a  lean-to,  and  the  Patterson,  which  is  a  survival 
of  the  older  type  with  the  lean-to  added  —  represent  what  we  may 
call  the  hewn  type  of  overhang,  a  type  in  which  the  projection  is 
in  the  post  itself,  and  is  obtained  by  hewing  that  post  into  the 
required   shape. 


54 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


The  Hollister  house  stands,  facing  east,  on  the  west  side  of  the 
street,  just  below  Roaring  Brook,  in  South  Glastonbury.  It  is  said 
to  have  been  built  by  a  Hollister  in  1675.'  It  is  probably  a  little 
later  than  that.  It  is  a  very  interesting  example;  and,  while  it  is 
of  the  same  type  as  the  Patterson,  it  is  peculiar  in  the  carving  of 
the  brackets  under  its  overhang. 

The  house  has  been  changed  somewhat  on  the  outside.  Upon 
the  old  clapboards  furring  strips  have  been  laid,  and   to  these   new 


H0L[J3TI^H0UX      Geou/^dPla/^. 

3Q(JLA5T0AE.UeY  — 


1SC/.U 


Figure  27. 


clapboards  have  been  nailed.  This  adds  a  thickness  of  nearly  two 
inches  to  the  walls,  and  covers  somewhat  the  bottoms  of  the 
brackets.  The  carpenter  who  did  this  new  work  wanted  to  hew 
off  these  old  brackets,  which  were   in  his  way,  but   the  owner  right- 


'  It  is  now  owned  by  Mr.  James  B.  Killam. 


\ 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  55 

eously  refused  to  hear  of  it.  The  present  windows,  as  well  as  the 
covering  of  the   house,  are  new. 

The  lean-to,  in  this  example,  was  built  with  the  house.  The 
low  pitch  of  the  roof,  which  is  original,  is  one  proof  of  this.  The 
fact  that  the  second  floor  is  level  throughout,  instead  of  dropping 
in  the  lean-to  chamber,  is  another  proof — though  this  is  not  a 
sure  sign.  A  dropped  floor  in  the  lean-to  chamber  may  occur, 
as  in  the  Painter  house,  West  Haven,  and  in  the  Pulsifer  house. 
South  Glastonbury,  where  the  lean-to  is  undoubtedly  original.  A 
level  floor  is  not  so  likely  to  occur  in  an  added  lean-to  house,  for 
it  is  so  much  easier  to  frame  the  girts  of  the  lean-to  into  the 
backs  of  the  old  posts  below  the  mortises  of  the  main  house  girts 
instead  of  on  a  level  with  them,  and  it  is  so  much  better  for  the 
house. 

In  the  entry,  which  is  very  wide,  there  is  a  good  left-hand  stair 
— one  with  the  rail  on  the  left  as  you  go  up — and  under  this  stair 
is  that  rare  and  rather  late  feature,  a  door  to  the  cellar,  which  is 
reached  by  a  flight  of  solid  wooden  steps.  Between  this  door  and 
the  newel -post,  as  the  plan  explains,  there  is  a  seat.  This  whole 
stair,  however,  with  the  wainscoting  and  the  casing  of  the  beams 
in  the  rooms,  is  later  than  the  house. 

The  chimney  is  of  brick,  on  a  stone  foundation  which  rises  to 
the  first  floor  level.  The  cellar  wall  is  of  the  same  kind  of  ma- 
sonry— flat  stones,  largely  of  gneiss,  perhaps  from  the  river  bank — 
and  is  pointed,  and  seems  to  have  been  originally  laid,  with  good 
lime  mortar. 

The  cellar  extends  under  the  lean-to,  and  there  is  no  sign  of 
patching  in  the  masonry.  A  heavy  stick  like  the  sill  on  the  front, 
shown  in  the  section,  here  runs  across  on  the  line  of  the  partition 
between  parlor  and   kitchen  ;   and   the   framing,   as   the  section   dis- 


56 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


plays  it,  changes  suddenly.     The  joists  of  the  kitchen  floor  run,  as 
is  natural,  across  from  the  back  wall  to  this  beam. 

In  the  garret  the  chimney  shows  none  of  that  patching  for  the 
kitchen  flue  which  is  the  surest  sign  of  an  added  lean-to.  The 
rafters  of  the  main  roof — which,  as  we  have  said,  is  original  —  are 
completely  finished ;  and  the  ends  of  them  project,  as  on  the  front, 


HoLLi:)TnEHovx 


J>t.cr\oH 


Figure  28. 


over  the  plate  which  crowns  the  wall  between  the  chambers  and 
the  lean-to.  Upon  the  same  plate  rest  the  ends  of  the  lean-to 
rafters.  There  are  no  collar-beams,  a  characteristic  of  this  period, 
though  not  an  especially  common  one,  which  seems  to  have  come 
up  from  New  Haven. 

In    the   partition  wall    which  we   have  just  mentioned   the   posts 
and   braces   are   in   place,  with  the  studs  around  them.      The  inter- 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  .57 

mediate  studs  are  2;one,  but  the  mortises  for  them  remain.  The 
timbers  are  very  clean  —  one  stud  is  quite  dark  —  but  nail  holes 
e.xist  in  them,  which  testify  to  the  former  presence  of  clapboards  or 
of  boarding  put  on  in  the  lean-to  chamber  for  the  sake  of  warmth 
—  a  device  not  uncommon  in  these  original  lean-to  houses.  The 
stains  from  the  nails  are  not  strong  enough  to  have  been  made 
by  the  weather.  They  are  caused  simply  by  the  gallic  acid  of  the 
oak,  which  acts  on  the  iron. 

The  shape  of  the  bracket  under  the  overhang  of  this  house, 
as  given  in  Plate  VII,  is  peculiar.  It  is  unlike  any  we  have  seen 
elsewhere,  and  seems  to  be  a  union  of  the  hewn -bracket  idea  with 
the  curious  double  curve  of  circular  contour  which  w^as  used  under 
the  overhangs  in  the  Gleason  house  and  in  the  Cowles  house  in 
Farmington. 


58 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


E>EEU/» 


'^iSZ^ 


II.      The    Patterson    House. 


What  is  called  the  Patterson  house  stands  just  cast  of  a  little 
stream  which  runs  northward  into  the  Mattabesett  river.  It  faces 
eastward  upon  a  road  which  has  some  appearance  of  having  been 
bent  around  in  that  direction  to  accommodate  the  dwellers  in  the 
house.  It  is  on  the  edge  of  the  meadow  land,  iust  at  the  foot  of 
the  hill  on  which  stands  the  village  of   Berlin. 

The  choice  of  such  a  site  would  of  itself  mark  the  building  as 
the  home,  or  the  successor  of  the  home,  of  an  early  settler,  even  if 
the  house  were  unsatisfactory;  but  in  this  case  the  sunken,  twisted, 
weather-beaten  veteran  —  which  still  faces  the  visitor  who  passes 
under  the  shadow  of  the  trees  which  darken  the  door-yard — leaves 
nothing  to  be  desired. 

The  house  is  said  to  have  been  built  by  Isaac  Hart  in  1721. 
This  we  cannot  believe.  Isaac  may  have  added  the  lean-to,  but 
the  house  is  of  a  type  which  belongs  to  a  time  before  his  day. 
If  it  is  not  so  late  as  this,  it  cannot,  on  the  other  hand,  be  earlier 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  59 

than  1670.  Tlie  house  belonged,  probably,  to  some  settler  at- 
tracted to  the  neighborhood  by  the  presence  of  Richard  Beckley,' 
and  was  built  in  the  decade  which  began  with    1680. 

The  house  as  it  now  apj^ears  —  Figure  29  —  has  at  the  back  a 
lean-to,  which  a  very  slight  investigation  shows  to  have  been  a 
later  addition.  The  building  stands  upon  a  foundation  of  rough 
stone  concealed,  except  at  the  back  of  the  lean-to,  by  the  settle- 
ments which  have  taken  place  in  the  walls.  Under  the  parlor — 
the  more  northern  of  the  two  rooms  which  the  house  originally 
possessed  —  there  is  a  cellar  which  may  once  have  had  windows, 
but   which   is   now  absolutely  dark. 

The  porch  or  entry — see  the  plan  in  Figure  30  —  contains  the 
original  staircase,  which  is  almost  exactly  like  that  in  the  John 
Barnard  house,  both  in  the  plan,  with  its  steps  all  winders,  and  in 
the  construction,  with  the  peculiar  device  for  carrying  the  treads — 
a  device  which  appeared  also,  it  will  be  remembered,  in  the  \Miit- 
man  house. 

In  the  hall  the  ceiling  has  been  plastered,  but  tlie  walls,  which 
have  been  papered,  still  retain  their  old  "wainscot"  or  sheathing 
of  horizontal  boards.  Summer  and  posts  have  been  cased.  There 
is,  in  front  of  the  old  fireplace,  which  has  been  filled  with  a  later 
one  and  with  an  oven,  a  hearth  of  brownstone  in  three  pieces. 
Under  the  stairs  is  the  descent  to  the  cellar,  reached  by  the  usual 
wide  door  opening  from  this  room.  The  steps  are  of  solid  timbers. 
Over  the  fireplace  in  this  room,  and  in  the  parlor  also,  is  the  com- 
mon wooden  lintel,  each  end  of  which  rests — at  the  end  visible  on 


'The  pioneer  in  this  region  —  once  the  southwest  corner  of  Wethersfield — was  .Sergeant  Richard 
Beckley.  a  carpenter  from  New  Haven,  from  whose  name  the  territory  east  of  the  Farmington  line 
in  this  neighborhood  was  called  the  Beckley  Quarter.  This  house  seems  not  to  have  been  within 
the  grant  made  to  him  by  Wethersfield  soon  after  his  arrival  in   1668. 


GO 


EARLY     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES. 


the  cellar  stairs,  and  no  doubt  at  the  other  end  also  in  the  original 
sclieme — on  a  6x6  oak  stick  embedded  in  the  chimney  and  reach- 
ing from  one  face  thereof  to  the  other.  This  is  a  wise  precau- 
tion, both  as  a  tie  and  as  a  bearing  for  the  heavy  lintels,  which 
are  liable  to  roll  with  the  least  settlement  in  a  chimney  which, 
like  this,  is  laid  up  in  nothing  but  the  ordinary  clay  so  common 
in   the  Valley  settlements. 

The    parlor    differs    little    from    the    hall.       It    has    never    been 
plastered.       It   still    retains   in   its    northeast   corner   the    "  boffet,"   as 


.15. ^    li-lt  (,K^^->,i,^  _J?|i — 


PATTEESq^HoVJE- 

iEKLIA. 


3e^i."  Uiw*  z..d.ii. 


FiR5T  Floor  Plaai. 


Figure  30. 


the  old  inventories  sometimes  spelled  the  word,  which  tells  of  a 
time  when  it  was  the  dining  room  of  the  mansion  —  a  position  it 
assumed  at  the  time  when  the  lean-to  was  added.  This  boffet, 
then,  makes  it  probable,  from  its  date,  that  Isaac  Hart  built  the 
lean-to   in   1721. 


EARLV     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  F)l 

The  lean-to  contains  a  kitchen  with  a  very  wide  stone  fire- 
place ;  and  it  has  a  small  chamber  at  each  end.  There  is  no 
crane  in  the  fireplace,  and  the  original  arrangement  of  long  "  tram- 
mels," hanging  down  from  bars  across  the  fiue,  is  still  to  be  seen. 
There  is  no  oven  here — a  proof  of  what  we  have  constantly  noted, 
that  the  old  stone  chimneys  nowhere  have  them,  and  that  they 
came  into  common  use  when  brick  was  plenty.  They  are,  there- 
fore, especially  in  these  remoter  houses,  always  additions  built  into 
an  older  fireplace  —  here  that  of  the  hall.  It  would  look  a  little 
from  this  as  if  the  lean-to  came  later  than  the  building  of  the 
oven,  which  dates  from  the  time  when  the  hall  was  still  the  kitchen 
also  of  the  house. 

The  second  story  contains  little  of  note,  except  the  construction 
of  the  stairs  which  lead  to  the  garret  and  the  framing  which  ap- 
pears in  the  lean-to  chamber.  The  stairs  we  shall  illustrate  in  the 
chapter  on  Construction.  The  framing  which  can  be  seen  in  the 
lean-to  chamber  is  evidentl}'  that  of  the  outside  wall  of  the  original 
house.  Posts,  braces,  and  studs  are  all  in  place  ;  and,  though  the 
clapboards  are  gone,  certain  weather  stains  on  the  frame  show 
where  they  once  were.  The  flue  added  to  the  chimney  when  the 
lean-to  was  built  is  plainly  visible.  There  is  no  fireplace  in  the 
parlor  chamber;  that  in  the  hall  chamber  has  been  built  up  with 
a  smaller  opening.  The  flooring  in  this  story  is  of  hard  pine,  and 
the  floor  boards  are  halved  together  instead  of  being  tongued  and 
grooved. 

In  the  garret  the  patching  of  the  stone  chimney  is  even  more 
apparent  than  it  is  below.  The  framing  of  the  roof  is  intact. 
There  are  four  pairs  of  principal  rafters  —  one  pair  over  each  girt 
crossing  the  house,  in  the  usual  way  —  with  purlins;  but  there  are 
no  collar- beams  —  a  touch  which  seems  to  indicate  New  Haven  in- 


62 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


fluence.      Above  the  roof  the  chimney  is  of  brick,  and   the   present 
topping-out  is  quite  modern. 

To    return    now    to    the    outside   of    the   building.       We   find    its 
most   striking   characteristic   in   the   overhang    of    the   second    story. 


Pattee5q^  Hov3r 

btRUH 


This,  \vc  have  said,  is  of  what  may  be  called  tlie  hewn  type  ;  that 
is  to  say,  the  posts — corner  posts  and  all  —  are  of  one  piece  of 
timber  throurjhout  their  length.  The  size  is  taken  in  the  second 
story,  where  the  corner  post,  for  instance,  is  fifteen  inches  square, 
and  then  the  bracket  which  apparently  supports  the  overhang  is 
hewn  out  of  this  excess,  so  that  the  post  is  thus  reduced  in  size, 
in  the  first  story,  to  the  ordinary  square  section  of  about  seven 
inches.  This  scheme,  it  will  be  seen  at  once,  is  quite  different 
from  that  used  in  the  I^armington  and  Windsor  houses  we  have 
studied,  and  exactly  like  some  examples  we  shall  meet  later  in  the 
New  Haven  jurisdiction.  It  points  to  a  tradition  which  must  have 
descended  through  another  line  of  craftsmen  than  those  who 
wrought    the    overhangs    so    much    more    common    in    the    Connec- 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  63 

ticut  colony.  We  shall  try,  in  the  chapter  on  Construction,  to 
which  we  refer  the  reader  for  the  details  of  this  method,  to  sug- 
gest  the   origin   and   the   history  of   the   type. 

The  gable  overhangs  at  each  end  of  the  house.  At  the  south 
end  there  still  appears,  in  the  under  side  of  the  projecting  plate, 
the  mortise  for  a  bracket  which  has  now  departed. 

This  house  gives  us  the  only  opportunity  we  have  had  to  see 
a  complete  cornice  of  this  date  in  its  original  condition.  The 
rafter-ends  project  nearly  a  foot,  and  are  so  cut  on  the  under  side 
as  to  be  heavier  at  the  ends  than  where  they  leave  the  plate  —  a 
very  artistic    touch. 

The  old  place  has  not  many  more  years  of  existence.  Its  roof 
is  tight,  and  that  will  keep  it  for  some  time  yet ;  but  it  is  aban- 
doned, and  it  is  very  strange  how  fast  a  house  goes  down  when 
once  it   is   out   of   touch   with   humanity. 


64 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


JoH/i  Bae^aedHou5^   Haetford 


III.      The    John    Baknard    House. 

This  house,  which  had  no  overhang,  and  wliich  was  a  survival 
of  the  type  of  the  first  period,  stood  also  on  Retreat  avenue,  several 
rods  north  or  east  of  the  Dorus  Barnard  mansion.  It  was  built 
by  Robert  Webster  for  one  of  his  sons,  or  possibly  by  that  son 
for  himself  on  his  father's  land,  about  1673.  Matthew  Webster, 
great-grandson  of  Robert,  sold  it  in  1762  to  Jonathan  Bigelow. 
In  1765  it  came  from  Bigelow  into  the  hands  of  his  son-in-law, 
Captain  John  Barnard,  from  whom  it  took  the  name  it  bore  till 
it  was  pulled  down  in  June,  1898.  From  Miss  Lavinia  Barnard, 
granddaughter  of  Captain  John,  it  descended  to  its  last  owner,  Mr. 
John   Barnard  Cone.' 

The  building,  while  not  quite  so  old  as  the  Dorus  Barnard  — 
which,  in  some  dimensions,  it  very  closely  resembled  —  had  retained 


'The  history  of  this  house  will  also  be  found  in  Appendix  II. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


6-5 


tlie  ancient  sharp -pitched  roof  over  its  original  rooms,  and  thus 
had  preserved  more  of  its  primitive  appearance.  It  had  also  suf- 
fered severely  from  decay,  and  looked,  as  it  stood  just  before  de- 
struction, to  be   the  older  house  of  the  two. 


JOHM  5AK/>(AED       fiEST  3T0EY  PlAM 
HOV5E:  Hartford. 

Figure  3;. 

The  lean-to  which  appears  in  the  drawing  was  not  original, 
nor  was  it  even  an  early  addition.  It  was  built,  tradition  says,  by 
Captain  Barnard,  about  1767.  The  chimney  had  a  T-shaped  top, 
which  shows  a  rebuilding,  very  clearly  seen  in  the  garret,  to  ac- 
commodate the  new  fireplace  in  the  kitchen  of  the  lean-to.  At 
the  back  of  the  lean-to,  in  a  sort  of  extension,  was  an  old  door, 
which  looked  as  if  it  had  once  served  as  the  front  door  of  the 
house.  It  was  boarded  vertically  on  the  outside,  horizontally  on 
the  inside  ;  in  the  fashion,  remembered  but  seldom  seen,  which  the 
settlers   brought    with    them   from    Eno;land. 


GO  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Within  the  house  we  find,  at  the  south  end,  the  hall,  with  a 
door  at  the  side  of  the  fireplace  —  a  door  which,  if  we  open  it, 
discloses  the  stair  to  the  cellar  beneath  the  parlor.  The  stairs  to 
the  second  story,  under  which  the  cellar  stairs  went  down,  were, 
as  the  plan  in  Figure  33  will  show,  all  winders,  with  a  partition 
at  the  side,  in  the  old  fashion,  and  with  no  rail.  The  steps  were 
constructed  like  those  in  the   Whitman  house. 

Both  hall  and  parlor  were  plastered  on  walls  and  ceiling,  and 
the  beams  in  them  were  cased.  In  the  hall  was  a  buffet  in  the 
usual  place  —  the  right-hand  further  corner  as  you  stand  with  your 
back  to  the  fireplace.  At  the  fireplace  end  of  the  parlor  was 
some  good  panelling,  covering  the  whole  end  of  the  room.  All 
this  work,  however,   was  of  later  date  than  the  house. 

In  the  second  story,  the  parlor  chamber,  at  the  north  end,  was 
more  elaborate  than  that  over  the  hall  ;  and  here,  again,  the  fire- 
place end  of  the  room  was  filled  with  beautiful  pine  panelling, 
unpainted,  but  darkened  to  a  glorious  tint,  almost  like  that  of 
Spanish  cedar,  by  the  smoke  of  the  old  wood  fires.  The  end  girt 
in  this  room  had  been  patched  where  it  was  broken  under  the 
summer,  and   a   new  summer  had   been   put   in. 

The  roof  was  original  and,  in  the  garret,  showed  manifestly 
that  the  lean-to  roof  built  up  on  the  main  rafters  was  an  addition. 
The  chimney,  as  we  have  already  said,  showed  the  patching  —  or 
rather  the  adding — made  necessary  by  the  new  kitchen  flue  which 
rose  along  the  back  of  the  old  stack  with  a  plainly -visible  vertical 
joint  between  them.  The  old  chimney  was  of  brick  laid  in  mortar 
of  clay,  and  probably  replaced  an  earlier  stack  of  stone. 

There  was  a  quaint  charm  about  this  house — a  picturesqueness, 
nay,  even  a  beauty  of  line  and  of  pose.  It  made  a  powerful  ap- 
peal  for   simplicity   in    architectural    design. 


CHAPTER    IV 


THE    THIRD    PERIOD    IN    THE    CONNECTICUT    COLONY, 

1700-1750. 


E  have  seen  that  the  houses  of  the  earliest  period  were  of 
two  rooms  —  one  at  each  side  of  the  chimney — on  each 
floor.  As  more  room  became  necessary  a  kitchen  was 
thrown  out  behind  the  chimney ;  and  this  kitchen,  with  other 
rooms  which  later  wei'e  added  to  it,  was  covered  with  a  lean-to 
roof.  We  saw,  also,  that  in  the  second  period,  while  in  many 
houses  the  early  type  of  plan  survived,  this  modification,  brought 
about  by  the  added  kitchen,  was  taken  up  and  made  an  integral 
part  of  the  house  from  the  beginning  of  its  construction,  and  that, 
therefore,  the  lean-to  appears  in  this  second  period  as  a  part  of 
the   original   fabric. 

In  the  third  period  the  builders  went  one  step  further.  The 
old  lean-to  chamber,  as  the  room  under  that  roof  and  above  the 
kitchen  was  called,  was  of  very  little  account.  To  make  this  part 
of  the  floor -space  of  some  value,  the  craftsmen  abandoned  the 
lean-to  and  raised  the  back  of  the  house  to  the  same  height  as 
the   front.      They   made    a    two-story   house    on    the   same    plan   on 


68  EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

which  they  had  previously  built  the  lean-to.  The  lean-to  sur- 
vived, indeed,  well  down  into  the  third  period  ;  but  the  distin- 
guishing mark  of  the  time  is  the  "upright"  or  full  two -story 
house,  with  its  kitchen  and  kitchen  -  chamber  behind  the  parlor 
and    hall,    with    the    chambers    over    them. 

Other  marks  of  advancement  also  appear.  The  front  stairs 
become  more  elaborate,  and  are  constructed  in  a  manner  different 
from  that  of  the  older  flights.  Lime  mortar  is  the  rule.  Brick 
and  even  cut  stone  appear  in  the  underpinnings.  Classic  details 
come  in  also  ;  and  toward  the  end  of  the  period  —  which  lasts 
twenty-five  years  longer  than  in  Rhode  Island  —  there  is  nothing 
on  the  outside  of  the  house,  or,  except  the  summer,  on  the  inside, 
to  distinguish  the  work  of  this  period  from  that  of  the  years  just 
before   or  just   after  the    Revolution. 

The  overhang  still  appears  very  often  ;  but  it  is  used  with 
much  less  projection,  and  with  neither  bracket  nor  drop.  The 
constant  encroachments  of  plaster,  and  the  desire  to  keep  the  new 
plastered  ceilings  free  from  the  old-fashioned  beams,  led,  toward 
1750,  to  the  abandonment  of  the  summer.  The  old  beam  still 
exists,  as  it  did  in  the  Rhode  Island  houses ;  but,  as  in  them,  it 
was  now  of  less  depth,  that  it  might,  on  the  under  side,  be  flush 
with  the  joists,  now  made  larger,  and  so  might  be  plastered  over 
and  concealed  —  only  making  itself  known  by  the  persistent  crack 
which  the  shrinkage  of  it  brought  about  in  the  plastering. 

The  plan  changes  again  toward  the  end  of  the  period.  This 
change  may  have  been  due,  like  the  introduction  of  the  classic 
orders,  to  English  influence,  but  it  had  its  root  in  an  old  type  of 
plan  more  common  in   Virginia   than   in    New  England.'     The   hall 

'  See  Chapter  X   for  an  explanation  of  this  type. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  69 

or  passage  through  the  house  from  front  to  back,  with  the  stairs 
at  one  side  of  it,  now  came  into  fashion,  and  to  this  innovation  a 
change  in  both  the  number  and  the  arrangement  of  the  rooms 
was  due.  We  can  trace  this  admirably,  as  we  shall  show,  in  the 
old  Connecticut  colony,  where  it  appears  in  the  Sheldon  Wood- 
bridge  house  on  Governor  street,  Hartford,  and  in  the  Burnham- 
Marsh  house  and  the  Webb  house  at  Wethersfield.  All  these  are 
steps  in  the  line  of  development  —  in  which  the  Sheldon  is  very 
close  to  the  old  type — which  led  up  to  the  final  result  as  we  see  it 
in  the  Belden- Butler  house,  Wethersfield,  and  the  Butler- McCook 
house,   Hartford,  where  the  summer  has  disappeared. 

In  studying  the  house  of  this  period,  we  shall  consider  first 
those  which  are  survivals  of  the  preceding  period  —  those,  that  is, 
which  have  original  lean-tos.  We  shall  then  take  up  those  which 
in  form  are  typical  of  this  time,  and  finallv  examine  those  which 
may  be  considered  as  transitional  —  as  leading  to  the  four- room, 
central -hall  type  of    Revolutionary  and   later  date. 

The  examples  we  have  to  discuss  are  : 

I.  The  Barrett    House,   Wethersfield,    c.   1730. 

H.  The  Meggatt    House,   Wethersfield,   c.   1730. 

III.  The  Sheldon  Woodbridge    House,    Hartford,   c.   1710. 

IV.  The  Webb    House,   Wethersfield,    c.   1752. 

V.      The    Ebenezer    Grant    House,    South   Windsor,    1757. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


I.      The    Barrett    House. 


This  old  dwelling  stands  backed  up  against  the  railway  on  the 
road  which  leads  south  from  the  west  side  of  the  lower  end  of 
Broad -street  Green.  It  is  another  lean-to  house,  contemporary 
with  the  MeofSfatt  house,  which  it  also  resembles  in  the  staircase. 
Which  is  the  earlier  stair  it  is  hard  to  say.  They  are  almost 
exactly  alike,  left-hand  turn  and  all,  except  that  the  Barrett  stair 
has  balusters  while  the  j\Iecrs:att  has  not.  We  are  inclined  to 
think  the  staircase  later  than  the  house,  which  seems  older  than 
the  Meggatt.  It  is  in  fair  condition.  The  door-handle,  of  which 
we  give  a  drawing  in  Figure  113,  while  some  years  later  than 
the  rest  of  the  house,  is  very  artistic.  It  is  more  ornate  than 
the  one  we  give  of  the  Meggatt  house,  with  which  it  should  be 
compared. 


EARLY     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES. 


71 


%o/9TT  Mouse 


II. 


The    Meggatt    House. 


Wethersfield  is  full  of  old  houses — the  greater  number  of  them 
skilfully  adapted  to  modern,  or  at  least  later,  requirements,  but 
still   retainine;  under  their  disfjuises  the  framing;  of  the  seventeenth 

o  o  o 

or  the  early  eighteenth  century.  There  are,  however,  as  we  have 
seen,  a  few  dwellings  which  have  been  suffered  to  remain  without 
addition  or  alteration  of  any  account,  and  though  these  are  all  of 
the  third  period,  and  late  at  that,  they  are  very  interesting.  Note- 
worthy among  them  in  size  and  interest  is  the  dilapidated  old  house 
we  have  now  to  study. 

The  Meggatt  house  stands  on  the  main  street  of  Wethersfield, 
below  the  church,  and  almost  directly  west  of  the  great  elm  on 
Broad-street  Green.  It  is  in  a  terrible  condition  as  to  roof  and 
walls,  though  most  of  the  frame  is  still  sound,  and  it  could  be 
made  quite  habitable.  It  was  built  we  do  not  know  when  or  by 
whom,  but  certainly  not  far  from   the   year    1725. 


72  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

The  house,  whicli  faces  east,  consists,  as  the  plan  in  Figure  36 
shows,  of  the  central  porch  on  the  front,  with  the  hall  on  the 
south  and  the  parlor  on  the  north.  Behind  the  central  chimney 
is  the  kitchen,  at  the  north  of  which  are  a  chamber  and  the 
present  back -stairs,  and  on  the  south  of  which  there  is  another 
chamber.  We  have  here,  then,  the  complete  scheme  in  the  plan, 
and,  as  the  perspective  shows,  in  the  elevation  also  ;  for  this  is  a 
full   two -story  house. 

The  underpinning  is  of  good  brick  laid  in  lime  mortar,  as  is 
the  topping -out  of  the  chimney.  The  material  of  the  chimney 
itself  below  the  attic  floor  was  not  to  be  seen ;  but  it  is  no  doubt 
of  brick,  since  the  under])inning  is.  The  fireplaces  are  of  brick. 
That  in  the  kitchen  is  flanked  by  the  oven  and  the  wood-bo.\ 
under  it   common    to    this   period. 

The  walls  are  built  with  studs.  On  tlie  north  the  spaces  be- 
tween them  are  filled  with  hand -made  brick  laid  in  the  red  clay 
oi  the  district,  which  has  now  a  fine  chocolate  color.  In  the  first 
story,  on  this  north  side,  the  clapboards  —  of  white  pine,  only  a 
very  little  thicker  at  the  lower  edge  than  at  the  upper — are  nailed 
directly  to  the  studs.  In  the  upper  story,  on  this  side,  board- 
ing appears.  The  whole  clapboarding  of  the  house  is  late — when 
the  traditional  use  of  oak  had  died  out  —  and  the  boarding  an 
added  repair.  On  the  west  the  bricks  do  not  appear,  and  in  the 
centre  of  that  side  the  whole  wall  is  broken  away,  so  that  the 
mortises  in  the  sill  and  in  the  girt  to  receive  the  studs  are  plainly 
visible.  Here,  at  the  south  end  of  the  side,  there  is  pine  boarding 
in  the  first  story,  joined  with  beveled  edges,  and  the  clapboards  fail. 
In  the  second  story  and  in  the  north  end  of  this  story  they  appear 
again.  In  the  boarding  just  described  there  is  the  opening  of  a 
very  old   window.      On    the   south   end    the    clapboards    are   still   in 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


73 


place,   and    the    brick    filling    is    probably    intact.       It    is    so    on    the 
front. 

The  second  story  overhangs  the  first  about  three  inches  all  the 
way  around  the  house,  as  in  the  Fiske  house  at  Guilford  ;  but 
there  are  no  brackets,  nor  do  any  signs  appear  that  there  ever 
were   any. 

The  roof  we  have  not  at  this  writing  examined.  It  appears  to 
be  original. 

The  front  door  opens  into  the  usual  porch  or  entry,  which  con- 
tains a  fine  staircase — Figure  36  —  with  a  heavily  moulded  string, 
a  moulded  rail,  caps  with  moulded  tops,  but  no  balusters.  The 
panelling  under  the  string,  and  the  seat,  with  a  panel  on  its  riser, 
are  excellent.  It  is 
probable  that  all  this 
work  is  original.  This 
is  another  left-hand 
stairway  —  that  is,  as 
the  plan  shows,  the 
visitor  turns  to  his  left 
to  ascend,  and  keeps 
the  rail  on  his  left 
hand.  Moreover,  the 
door  to  the  cellar  is 
under  the  upper  part, 
as  the  plan  again  will 
show,  and  forms  part 
of  the  panelling  under 
the  string,  while  in  most  houses  —  especiallv  in  those  of  the  earlier 
periods  —  so  far  as  we  have  seen,  the  descent  to  the  cellar  is  from 
the   hall.      The  explanation  of   this   change,  which   agrees  with  the 


Meggatt  Hou3e,       Rr5t5toe.y  Pla/V. 

"VV'ETHEEiFIED  ^'t 


Figure  36. 


li  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

later  practice  in  Newport  and  Narragansett,  may  perhaps  lie  in  the 
fact  that  the  hall  is  in  this  period  no  longer  the  kitchen. 

In  the  parlor,  or  north  room,  there  is  a  cased  summer  in  the 
usual  position,  and  the  usual  corner  post  on  the  front.  There  is 
no  post  in  the  northwest  corner;  but  the  second  summer — the 
descendant  of   the  old  side  girt  —  is  framed   into   the   end   girt  just 


IRAAI/IO  JO-IEAE- 

riKOAnHoU^E: 

IJoOFAflDFIRJT   rLPOK.<5niTTtD 


Figure  57. 


as  the  main  summer  is,  and  it  is  of  the  same,  or  almost  the  same, 
size — just  as  in  the  Benedict  Arnold  house  at  Newport.  That  is, 
there  are  only  eight  posts  in  the  house,  as  the  plan  will  show, 
instead  of  ten,  as  in  the  house  where  the  lean-to  is  part  of  the 
original  house,  or  where,  as  in  the  Providence  houses  of  this  period, 
the  logic  of  framing  had  not  gone  so  far.  It  is  a  concession  to 
the  lightening  of  framing  timber,  and  it  foretells  the  death  of  the 
old    heavy  fashion   of   construction.      The    bottom    of    the    summer, 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  75 

indeed,  is  almost  exactly  flush  with  that  of  the  end  girt,  although 
this  has  a  tremendous  span  —  twenty-eight  feet  —  and  carries  two 
summers  instead  of  one. 

There  is  some  good  panelling  on  the  fireplace  end  of  this 
room.  A  partition  under  the  second  summer  separates  the  parlor 
from  a  chamber  which  opens  out  of  it  on  the  west.  Another  door 
leads  to  the  kitchen,  between  which  and  the  chamber  there  is  now 
a  back  staircase — a  very  common  addition  to  all  these  older  dwell- 
ings. In  the  kitchen,  which  probably  included  originally  the  room 
now  given  to  the  stairs  —  though  there  may  have  been  a  pantry 
there  —  is  a  brick  fireplace  with  the  usual  oven  and  wood-bo.\. 

In  the  hall,  or  south  room — the  living-room  of  the  house — the 
work  is  rougher.  The  beams  are  bare,  though  the  end  of  the 
room  around  the  fireplace  is  elaborately  panelled,  as  in  the  hall  of 
the  Dorus  Barnard  house.  This  combination  of  panelling  with 
uncased  beams  is  an  argument  for  the  later  date  of  all  the  panel- 
ling in  the  house,  and  of  the  staircase  as  well. 

The  floor  in  the  kitchen  —  at  least  the  upper  floor,  for  even 
then  floors  were  double  —  is  of  hard  pine.  Of  course  it  is  impos- 
sible to  say  how  many  times  it  has  been  renewed. 

So  far  as  present  indications  go,  the  house  will  soon  be  a  thing 
of  the  past.  This  speedy  end  is  to  be  deplored,  as  the  building  is 
a  valuable  monument. 


70 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


III.      The    Sheldon  Woodbridge    House. 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  house  now  standing  in  Hartford, 
certainly  the  most  interesting  of  those  in  the  period  we  are  study- 
ing— a  house  unique,  so  far  as  we  know,  in  the  whole  Connecticut 
colony  —  is  that  which,  known  to  the  older  residents  of  Hartford 
as  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge,  after  a  former  owner,  stands  on  the 
eastern  side  of   Governor  street,  a  few  doors  from  Sheldon. 

The  house,  which  faces  west,  is  a  very  large  one,  and  is  very 
striking  in  appearance.  Built  probably  by  a  Mr.  Sheldon  in  1715,' 
it  has  neither  the  central  nor  the  two  lateral  chimneys,  but  one  at 
either  end  of  the  Ions:  ridije,  and  of  these  that  at  the  northern  end 
is  exactly  what  we  find  in  a  Providence  house  of  the  same  date,'^ 
and  what  we  do  not  find  elsewhere  in   Connecticut. 


'  Dr.  Charles  J.  Hoadly. 

'The  John  Crawford   House  was  built  in   1715. — Early  Khoih  Island  Houses,  p.  51.     The  date 
1710  fur  that  house — Ibiii.,  p,  94 — appears,  on  later  study,  to  be  doubtful. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  77 

The  whole  house,  except  the  addition  on  the  back,  was  built  at 
one  time.  The  north  end,  just  referred  to,  is  a  solid  brick  wall. 
The  south  end  had  once  a  door  and  three  windows.  The  windows 
remain,  the  door  has  been  built  up  and  a  fourth  window  cut  near 
it.  This  difference  between  the  north  and  south  ends  is  to  be 
accounted  for,  if  it  is  original,  by  the  desire  to  admit  the  southern 
sun  and  to  exclude  the  northern  wind.  There  is  little  doubt  that 
the  difference  was  always  present.  The  only  arguments  against  it 
are  the  large  size  of  the  windows,  with  the  use  of  flat,  instead  of 
segmental,  arches  in  the  heads,  and  the  iron  tie -anchors  which,  in 
the  second  story,  cut  through  the  belts,  and  which  do  not  appear 
on  the  north  end. 

The  north  end  has,  beside  the  resemblance  of  its  unbroken 
brick  wall,  a  strong  analogy  with  Rhode  Island  work  —  showing 
how  close,  after  all,  was  the  connection  between  the  New  England 
colonies.  This  is  in  the  use  of  blue  "  headers,"  or  bricks  with 
their  ends  burnt  to  a  dark  blue-grey  color  and  sometimes  vitrified, 
and  then  laid  with  these  ends  outward  in  the  face  of  the  wall. 
Two  courses  laid  in  what  is  called  Flemish  bond  —  where  the 
headers  and  "stretchers"  (brick  with  their  long  sides  in  the  face 
of  the  wall)  alternate  in  the  same  courses  —  have  their  headers  of 
blue  color,  and,  as  from  the  bond  the  headers  come  over  the 
stretchers,  and  vice-versa — see  Figure  92 — the  effect  is  excellent. 
In  Rhode  Island,  English  bond  —  a  course  all  headers  alternately 
with  oife  or  with  several  all  stretchers  —  is  preferred,  and  the 
headers  are  alternately  red  and  blue.  This  Hartford  scheme, 
however,  occurs  in  the  projecting  belts  of  the  old  Israel  Sayles 
house  near  Saylesville,  R.  I.  Above  these  two  courses,  in  the 
Sheldon  house,  come  five  of  the  ordinary  color,  then  two  more 
of    the    pattern.      The    belts    are    two    courses   high  ;    but    the  color 


lb  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

scheme,  contrary  to  what  we  should  expect,  does  not  prevail  in 
them.     In  the  gable  is  a  panel  of  herring-bone  work,  as  it  is  called. 

The  chimneys  are  L -shaped  in  plan  above  the  roof,  as  are  all 
those  in  Rhode  Island  which  have  these  fireplaces  in  the  end  wall. 
There  is  no  panelling,  nor  are  there  any  pilasters  ;  but  two  string 
courses  run  around  each  stack,  one  just  above  the  ridge,  the  other 
near  the  top.      The  bricks  are  very  large  —  8x4x214. 

There  is  no  color  pattern  in  the  south  end  of  the  house.  At 
the  base  of  the  north  chimney  is  a  beveled  water-table  of  brown- 
stone. 

The  entrance  to  the  house  is  in  the  center  of  the  front,  and 
the  usual  two  windows  appear  on   each   side.      These   windows   are 


i5HELDO;>)  H0U5E 
Ha£tfor.d,  FiR5-r3-noEvPi.Ak. 

Figure  39. 


probably  later  than   the    rest  of  the   building — though   the   cornice 
is  not,  but  is  one  of  the  earliest  cornices  we  have. 

Inside  the  house   we   find  ourselves   in   a  wide   entry,   as   it  was 
called,  which  runs  straight  through  to  the  back  of  the  house,  where 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  79 

it  has  a  door  corresponding  to  that  on  the  front.  The  stairs,  which 
probably  once  took  up  half  of  this  entry,  are  not  now  there  in 
the  first  story,  but  are,  like  those  of  the  Burnham- Marsh  house, 
in  a  separate  case  at  one  side,  as  the  plan  in  Figure  39  will  show. 
The  attic  stairs  are  now  between  the  girts  which  form  the  sides  of 
the  entry ;  but  they  were  not  so  originally,  as  we  can  see  by  the 
girt  at  the  south  of  the  passage  in  the  attic  floor  —  for  this  girt 
still  shows  the  mortises  of  the  old  floor-joists  which  were  taken 
out  to  make   room   for  the   stairs. 

At  the  north  of  the  entry,  or  long  passage,  are  the  jjarlor  and 
the  chamber  which  opened  from  the  parlor  on  the  east.  On  the 
south  a  part  of  the  front  room  has  been  partitioned  off;  but  the 
arrangement  was  substantially  the  same  as  it  is  on  the  north. 
The  front  room  was  the  hall  and  the  back  room  probably  was 
the  kitchen,  or  else  the  hall  was  used  as  a  kitchen  and  there  was 
a  chamber  out  of  it  on  the  east. 

In  either  end  each  room  has  its  fireplace  with  a  closet  beside 
it,  as  the  plan  will  show.  The  framing  is  of  the  same  kind  as 
that  we  saw  in  the  Meggatt  house.  The  second  summer,  which 
is  on  the  chamber  side  of  the  partition,  though  a  cornice  appears 
in  the  parlor,  is  spaced  with  the  main  summer  so  as  to  divide  the 
width  into  three  parts — see  Figure  39  ;  but  there  is  no  post  under 
the  chimney  end  of  it.  There  is  now%  under  the  other  end,  a  post 
which  appears  in  the  passage,  but  it  is  not  original.  The  girts 
show  in  the  hall,  or  one  of  them  —  the  north  one  —  does.  The 
other  projection  is  very  likely  only  a  cornice  ;  and  under  each  end 
of  this  north  girt,  which  spanned  without  support  the  whole  width 
of  the  house,  is  a  mighty  brace,  in  rather  an  unusual  place  for  it. 
In  fact,  the  appearance  of  this  brace  led  us  first  to  imagine  that 
there   was    before    us    a    genuine   "  brick-ender "   of    the    Providence 


80 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


pattern,  of   the   end   wall   of   which   this   girt   formed   a   part,  and    to 
which    the   south   end   had   been   added.      F"urther  examination   con- 


3cHCMf  2ada^D 

5rdr°°R5a«o  R'«f 

First  Fl"or.  "/niiitb 


Figure  40. 


vinced    us   that   this   was   an   error,   and   that    the   house  was,  as  we 
have  stated,  built  all  at  one  time. 

There  is  some  good  panelling  in  the  parlor,  and  a  good  mantel 
considerably  later  than  the  house.     The  doors,  one  panel  wide,  are 


KARI.Y     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


81 


possibly  of  that  date,  and  the  hinge  —  of  which  we  give  a  drawing 
in  Figure  113,  Chapter  IX — almost  certainly  is.  It  is  almost  ex- 
actly the  same  as  the  English  specimen  from  Oundle,  Northamp- 
tonshire, which  is  given  in  Gotch's  Architcctiirc  of  the  Renaissance 
ill  Eng/ane/}  Though  not  necessarily  a  very  old  example,  it  is  of 
a  very  old    type. 

All    the    casing  of   the   beams   is   probably  later  than  the  house, 
while    the    plastering    may   or    may    not    be  —  at    least    in    the    front 


Sheldo/v  Houic 

HAETrORD. 


Figure  41  • 


room.      The  outside  brick -work  is  laid  in  lime  mortar.      There  are 
traces  of  clay  on  the  inside  of  the  north  chimney  in  the  garret. 

The  roof  is  original  and  is  interesting.  It  consists  of  four  sets 
of  heavy  principal  rafters,  resting  one  on  each  girt  —  the  extreme 
ones  on  the  chimney  girt,  the  two  intermediates  on  the  girts  at 
the  sides  of  the  central  passage.      These  girts  form  the  tie-beams; 


'Part   I,  p.  :i.     The  specimen  before  us  may  have  come  from  Gov.  Hopkins'  house,  which  stood 


here. 


82  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

there  are  no  collars.  Between  these  principals  —  we  might  really 
call  them  trusses  —  purlins  are  framed  on  each  side  of  the  roof. 
The  purlins  between  the  two  central  pairs  of  rafters  are  dropped  a 
little  below  the  others,  to  avoid  cutting  the  rafter  too  much  where 
the  two  mortises  would  come  in  a  line.  Those  purlins  which  frame 
into  the  e.xtreme  rafters  —  those  ne.xt  the  chimneys  —  are  connected 
with  the  principals  by  a  brace.  Over  these  purlins  run  the  com- 
mon rafters,  the  backs  of  which  are  flush,  or  nearly  so,  with  the 
backs  of  the  principals.  This  description  will  be  explained  by 
Figure  40. 

The  dormers  are  not  original.  No  provision  for  them  was  made 
in  the  framina;,  and  where  one  of  them  comes  across  a  common 
rafter,  that  rafter  is  sawn  off.  The  framing  of  the  roof  is  of  oak. 
The  boards  of  the  attic  floor  are  of  hard  pine. 

In  the  second  story  the  plan  has  suffered  more  alteration  than 
it  has  below,  to  fit  it  for  the  three  tenements  into  which  it  is 
divided.  This  is  especially  true  at  the  head  of  the  stairs  and  in 
the  southern  of  the  two  front  tenements  —  the  third  is  in  the  later 
addition  at  the  back — the  former  front  and  back  chambers  over  the 
hall.  The  plan  indicates  briefly  the  relation  of  the  present  arrange- 
ment to  the  original  disposition. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


83 


-^..„ :,..^_  '^-^^Si^^^s^-,.,^,.,,. 


W.      The   W'ekb    House. 


This  —  also  known  as  the  Welles  house  —  is  the  most  famous 
house  in  Wethersfield.  It  stands  on  the  western  side  of  the  main 
street,  just  south  of  the  old  church.  It  was  once  Joseph  Webb's 
tavern,  and,  as  the  place  where  Washington  and  Rochambeau  held 
the  council  which  decided  on  the  Yorktown  campaign,  it  is  re- 
nowned all  over  the  country.  At  the  same  time  it  is  —  especially 
in  its  plan   and   framing  —  of  surprising  interest. 

The  house  consists  of  a  rectangular  main  building  with  brown- 
stone  underpinning  and  steps,  columnar  porch,  and  gambrel  roof, 
and  of  an  ell  at  right  angles  to  the  southwestern  corner  of  this 
main  block.  The  ell  first  claims  our  attention,  for  it  is  the  oldest 
part  of  the  building.     It  originally  occupied  the  place  of  the  pres- 


84 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


ent  main  house,  and  has  been  moved  back  and  turned  around,  or 
at  least  one  half  of  it  has,  for  only  one  end  and  perhaps  the  old 
stair-porch  now  remain,  so  that  it  faces  now  at  right  angles  to  its 
original  aspect.  A  glance  at  P'igures  42  and  43  will  make  this 
plain.  It  has  its  summer  and  end  girt,  and  one  chimney  girt 
with  a  brace  under  one  end  thereof,  but  it  was  never  more  than 
one  room  wide.  The  ancient  overhangs,  of  three  or  four  inches, 
still    e.xist    on    the    outside    wall    on    the    north    and    on    the    south. 


Webb  House 

"WETHEEsriEI-D. 


Figure  a 


M  1  Pla/j  of  Rest  Sttdey 


The  summer,  with  the  whole  second  floor,  is  now  on  the  level  of 
the  second  floor  of  the  main  house  —  or  at  least  very  near  it  —  so 
that,  as  the  rooms  of  the  front  house  are  very  high  in  the  clear, 
the  first  floor  of  the  ell  is  most  likely  a  new  one.  The  whole  ell 
is  set   upon   an   underpinning  of  brownstone,  which,  while  contem- 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  85 

porary  with  that  under  the  main  house,  is  not  so  elaborate  —  in 
fact   is  perfectly   plain. 

The  form  of  the  overhang  would  put  this  ell  in  the  third 
period.  It  must  be  remembered,  however,  that  there  are  two  lines 
of  development  in  the  Connecticut  colony  —  one  which  dropped 
the  overhang  in  the  second  period,  and  another  which  clung  to  it 
while  it  diminished  its  amount.  This  second  school  is  a  descend- 
ant of  that  at  New  Haven,  and  for  years  was  powerful  in  the 
Connecticut  valley.  From  the  single -room  depth  of  this  ell,  and 
_the  absence  of  any  lean-to,  it  may  be  that  we  have  here  an  in- 
stance of  this  class,  and  that  we  may  justify  ourselves  in  putting 
this  remnant  of  a  house  in  the  second  period. 

<No\v,  what  is  the  date  of  the  main  house  ?  The  late  Sherman 
\V.  Adams,  in  his  article  on  Wethersfield,'  says  that  Joseph  Webb 
bought  the  lot  with  a  house  on  it  from  Wolcott  in  1750,  and  that 
this  house  Webb  presumably  tore  down,  and  built  the  present  one. 
He  gives  no  authority  for  his  statement;  but  he  needs  no  better 
argument  than  that  furnished  by  the  old  ell  which  we  have  just 
described.  This  ell  measures  the  extent  of  the  tearing  down  ;  the 
main   building  shows  the  amount  of  the  new  work. 

The  interest  of  the  house,  however,  lies  not  in  the  ell,  but  in 
the  main  block.  This  has  a  dignified,  well-proportioned  exterior, 
and  an  interior  which,  to  ordinary  observation,  presents  only  the 
usual  central-entry  and  staircase  type  with  the  details  of  the  period. 
The  house  is,  however,  not  only  the  earliest  of  its  kind  which  we 
know,  but  it  shows  in  a  remarkable  manner  the  transition  from 
the  earlier  to  the  later  mode  of  building.  In  actual  plan  the 
house    is    precisely    like    the    other    central -entry    houses  —  among 


'  Mem.  Hist.  Hartford  Co. 


86  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

which  in  one  sense  it  belongs.  With  its  chimneys  each  in  the 
centre  of  the  back  wall  of  a  front  room,  it  is  a  step  in  advance 
of  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge,  and  on  the  same  lines  as  the  Belden- 
Butler  in  Wethersfield  or  the   Butler- McCook  in   Hartford. 

In  its  framing,  however,  the  house  is  only  half  a  step  beyond 
the  Sheldon  Woodbridge.  For  one  end  is  framed  in  exactly  the 
same  way  as  is  that  house.  In  the  other  end,  the  north,  the  car- 
penter changed  his  scheme,  and  fitted  it  more  closely  to  his 
chimney  —  adopting  the  arrangement  used,  without  showing  the 
summer,  in  the  later  central -entry  houses.  The  framing  in  the 
south  end  is  logical  for  a  central -chimney  or  an  end -chimney 
house  ;  it  is  not  so  for  this  house.  That  in  the  north  end  is 
logical. 

We  have  here,  then,  what  we  shall  find  again  in  the  Grant 
house  —  a  last  attempt  to  adapt  the  summer  to  the  new  plan  and 
the  new  finish  before  the  old-fashioned  beam  was  abandoned  alto- 
gether. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


87 


V.      The    Eeexezer    Grant    House. 


This  dwellinsf,  now  standing:  at  East  Windsor  Hill  —  thouLih  it 
is  one  of  the  most  elaborate  in  the  colony,  as  well  as  one  of  the 
best  known  —  is,  from  its  date,  outside  the  strict  limits  of  our 
work.  We  venture  to  include  it,  however,  for  several  reasons. 
It  is  framed  in  the  old-fashioned  way,  though  planned  entirely 
in  the  new  ;  in  many  ways,  also,  it  is  curiously  like  the  Webb 
house  ;  and  it  has  an  absolutely  certain  date,  based  on  the  con- 
temporary building  accounts  which  are  still  e.xtant.  The  house 
consists  of  a  main  building,  built  by  Ebenezer  Grant  in  1757  and 
175S,  and  of  an  ell,  said  to  have  been  built  in  1697  by  Samuel 
Grant,  2d,  grandson  of  old  Matthew  Grant,  the  famous  Recorder 
of   Windsor.      This    ell,   it   is  said,   was   built  as   a  house,   and   was 


88  EAKI.V     CONNECTICUT     MOUSES. 

moved  back  for  use  as  a  kitclien  when  the  larger  and  more  im- 
posing  mansion   was   erected. 

The  view  of  the  exterior  shows  the  extent  and  the  elaborate 
character  of  the  dwelling.  The  doorways  are  well  proportioned, 
and  the  details,  though  somewhat  rough,  arc  very  interesting  in 
showing  some  strongly  Elizabethan  touches.  The  mouldings  are 
not  of  good  classic  profile,  but  are  beak-like,  and  rather  sharply 
undercut.  The  capitals  of  the  pilasters  of  the  front  door  show 
foliage  strongly  resembling  that  on  some  of  the  old  chests  still 
preserved  in  the  neighborhood  of  Hartford,  while  the  treatment  of 
the  pedestals  is  almost  the  same  as  in  Elizabethan  and  Jacobean 
work. 

The  plan  of  the  house  —  Figure  45  —  is  of  the  type  becoming 
common  at  this  time  —  that  with  the  central  passage  and  the  two 
rooms  at  each  side.  The  chimneys  stand  one  at  each  side  of  the 
passage,  between  the  front  end  rooms,  which  differ  considerably  in 
size.      They  are   carried   on  foundations   pierced   from   east   to  west 

—  the  house  faces  east  —  with  brick  arches,  or  rather  barrel -vaults. 
This    construction    we    have    never    met    elsewhere    in    Connecticut 

—  though  it  occurs  in  Newport  and  in  Warwick,  Rhode  Island. 
The  cellar  walls  are  of  excellent  masonry,  of  the  brownstone  of 
the  district,  which  appears  on  the  outside  in  underpinning  and  in 
the  steps. 

The  entry  or  passage  contains  the  staircase,  which  does  not 
run  up  and  land  without  a  turn  as  in  the  Webb  and  the  Belden- 
Ikitler  houses,  but  which  has,  at  about  two -thirds  of  its  height,  a 
landing  and  a  half -turn,  with  the  rail  so  arranged  about  the  open- 
ing in  the  second  story  as  to  produce  a  very  pleasing  effect. 

In  the  southern  pair  of  rooms  the  summer  runs  in  the  old- 
fashioned  way  — that  is,  as  it  would   run   in   a  lean-to  or  an   upright 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


89 


house.  The  chimney  is  west,  or  outside,  of  the  "second  summer" 
of  the  old  plan — see  Figure  45.  Then,  behind  the  chimney,  there 
is  another  girt  which  carries  the  ends  of  the  floor- joists  over  the 
narrow  room  at  the  back.     The  regular  back  girt  carries  the  other 


Ea:5t  Vi/^DioK.  Hill 


Figure  j;. 


ends  of  these.  It  will  be  noticed  that  here,  as  in  the  Webb  house, 
the  chimneys  do  not  align,  but  that  one  is  nearer  the  front  of  the 
house  than  the  other. 


90  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

In  the  northern  pair  of  rooms  the  framing  is  different,  and 
reminds  us  strongly  of  the  remarkable  difference  to  be  seen  in  the 
Webb  house — though,  it  will  be  seen,  the  scheme  is  not  the  same, 
and  we  cannot  trace  an}'  hesitation  in  the  construction. 

Here  the  chimney  is  a  little  further  forward;  but  the  summer 
runs,  as  in  one  end  of  the  Webb  house,  from  the  front  wirt  to 
the  "irt  in  front  of  the  chimney  —  the  old  second  summer.  This 
second  summer  has  a  post  under  it,  and  there  is  no  girt  at  the 
back  of  the  chimney  in  the  first  story,  though  one  appears  in  the 
corresponding  plan  upstairs. 

The  ell  is,  in  appearance,  of  the  old  type,  with  a  lean-to  —  only 
part  of  which  is  an  addition.  There  is  a  tradition,  which  we  have 
already  mentioned,  that  this  ell  was  an  older  house  moved  back 
from    the   post   of    honor   upon   the   street. 

A  little  study  of  the  ell,  however,  will  reveal  certain  peculiar- 
ities which  render  it  doubtful  whether  this  part  of  the  house  was 
ever  independent,  and  make  it  look  as  if  the  whole  building  was 
put  up  at  one  time.  The  plan  lacks  one  end,  for  no  apparent 
reason ;  and,  while  the  chimney  is  in  its  natural  place,  the  space 
between  the  two  chimney  girts  is  so  narrow  that  it  would  have 
been  difficult  to  place  there  the  regular  form  of  staircase.  Again, 
the  stairs  now  in  the  back  room  of  the  main  house  —  apparently 
an  old  flight  which  may  have  come  from  an  older  house — certainly 
have  never  stood  in  the  narrow  space  between  those  chimney  girts. 
Further,  the  end  girt  of  the  ell  —  speaking  of  it  for  the  moment 
as  if  it  were  an  older  house  —  is  also  the  back  girt  of  the  new 
house,  that  is,  the  same  stick  serves  for  both.  This  incorpora- 
tion of  an  older  building  is  rare,  for,  generally,  it  cannot  be  ac- 
complished. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


91 


In  the  large  chamber  of  the  ell  is  some  very  fine  panelling  of 
pine,  beautifully  wrought,  still  unpainted,  and  splendidly  colored  by 
age  and  the  smoke  of  the  wood  fires.  This  panelling  is  not  nec- 
essarily older  than  that  in  the  front  of   the  house  ;    neither  are  the 


FKyfT^TEA/lCC 


Figure  46. 


stairs,  of  which  we  have  spoken,  at  the  south  end  of  the  front. 
These  may  have  been  simply  of  a  type  which  was  at  that  time 
out  of  fashion,  and  which  was  therefore  chosen  as  suitable  for  the 
back  stair,  which  here  is  quite  prominent. 


92  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

Another  argument  there  is  which  does  not  appear  upon  the 
plan.  It  is  to  be  found  in  the  garret  of  the  ell  where  the  top 
of  the  plate  is  visible.  The  upper  inside  corner  of  this  plate  is 
chamfered — a  thing  unheard  of  in  the  annals  of  colonial  carpentry 
— and  the  chamfers  have  stops.  There  are  also  some  old  mortises 
which,  like  the  chamfers  and  their  stops,  have  no  relation  to  the 
present  construction.  The  plate  is  simply  an  older  beam,  perhaps, 
and,  indeed,  quite  probably  a  plate,  turned  upon  its  side  and  used 
again.  This  makes  it  look  as  though  the  house  which  Samuel 
Grant  built  in  1697,  of  which  this  re-used  plate  was  a  part,  had 
been  pulled  down  sixty  years  later,  and  the  timber  in  it  worked 
over  in  the  ell  of  the  new  and  higher- storied  house. 


CHAPTER    V 


THE   EARLIEST    PERIOD    IN    THE    NEW    HAVEN    COLONY. 

1638-1675. 

E  influence  which  the  wealth  or  poverty  of  the  earliest 
settlers  had  upon  their  architecture  finds  a  notable  illus- 
^  tration    in    the    New   Haven   colony.       If    we    consider    the 

planters  of  Providence  the  poorest  body  of  men  that  ever  founded 
a  New  England  state,  it  is  certain  that  the  proprietors  of  Ouinni- 
piac  were  the  wealthiest,  as  a  whole,  that  ever  began  a  plantation 
north  of  the  Hudson.  In  this  conclusion  tradition  and  the  docu- 
ments agree. 

We  should,  therefore,  expect  to  discover  in  New  Haven  a  school 
of  craftsmen  accustomed,  in  the  first  place,  to  the  English  houses 
of  the  larger  class,  and  granted,  in  the  second  place,  through  the 
opulence  of  Davenport,  Eaton,  and  others,  an  opportunity  to  build 
such  houses  in  the  new  town.  And  this  is  just  what  tradition, 
amply  supported  by  records  and  inventories,  shows  us  as  actually 
existing. 

The  colonial  records  of  New  Haven  are  very  full  and  explicit 
on  matters  of  building,  much  more  so  than  those  of  Rhode  Island. 
Indeed,   they   surpass   even   the   town    records   of    Hartford  for   that 


94  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

early  time.  F'rom  these  documents  it  appears  that  carpenters,  as 
well  as  other  craftsmen,  were  among  the  earliest  comers ;  but  a 
great  deal  of  building  was  to  be  done,  skilled  labor  was  in  demand, 
and  wages  were  forced  up,  as  they  always  are  in  a  new  country. 
This  was  before  the  day  of  Adam  Smith  ;  and,  therefore,  to  the 
fathers  of  New  Haven,  who  knew  far  more  of  the  statutes  of 
Moses  than  of  the  law  of  supply  and  demand,  this  action  of  the 
craftsmen,  in  taking  all  the  wage  they  could  get,  seemed  outra- 
geous. Accordingly,  they  passed  a  law  to  restrain  such  rapacity 
and  to  fix  the  amount  due  for  all  kinds  of  labor.  They  even — with 
sublime  disregard  of  the  state  of  the  market  —  fixed  the  price  for 
all  building  material.  This  same  course,  familiar  in  English  legis- 
lation from  the  time  of  the  Black  Death,  had  been  taken  by  the 
authorities  of  Massachusetts  Bay ;  but  the  laws  were  soon  repealed. 
In  New  Haven  the  action  of  the  court  seems  never  to  have  been 
formally  annulled.  It  probably  fell  into  disuse  and  consequent 
oblivion.  In  spite  of  the  bad  principle  underlying  it,  we  cannot 
be  too  thankful  the  old  law  was  passed ;  for  it  sheds  more  light 
than  all  other  documents  put  together  on  the  architecture  of  the 
New  Haven  settlements. 

From  these  enactments,  supplemented  by  other  notices  not  a 
few  about  building  and  material,  scattered  through  the  records,  we 
learn  that  the  people  of  Quinnipiac  could  have  lime  mortar  and 
brick,  could  have  their  houses  plastered  —  both  walls  and  ceilings 
—  and  could   even   have   paint    if   they  were   so   minded. 

•  Plaster  and  paint,  and  even  brick,  however,  were  only  for  the 
wealthy.  Through  the  records  of  the  same  court,  which  had  the 
unfortunate  habit  of  directing,  by  its  legislation,  all  the  concerns — 
spiritual   and   temporal — of   the   people,    we   learn    that   many  of   the 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  95 

poorer  class,  single  men  at  least  —  and  indeed  others,  as  we  know 
from  Michael  Wigglesworth — lived  in  cellars  as  the  same  men  did 
at  Hartford.  Again,  the  oft -repeated  action  as  to  the  chimney- 
viewer,  while  it  does  not,  necessarily,  in  this  colony,  imply  the 
existence  of  the  wooden  chimney,  does  tell  us,  in  so  many  words, 
that  story-and-a-half  houses  existed  side  by  side,  as  in  Hartford, 
with   the  more   pretentious   dwellings.      Both   the   one -story  houses 

—  whether  of  one  room  or  two  —  and  those  of  two  stories  were  of 
the  same  type  as  those  we  have  just  been  studying  in  the  Con- 
necticut colony ;  that  is,  the  plans  of  both,  setting  aside  a  few 
special  examples  for  separate  study,  are  identical.  In  some  details 
of  construction  the  houses  of  the  two  settlements  differ,  showing 
two  different  lines  of  tradition  from  old  England ;  for  it  seems 
certain  that  the  small  overhang — which,  as  we  have  said,  charac- 
terizes the  western  part  of  the  present  State  after  the  heavy  Hart- 
ford form  dies  out — had  its  root  in  the  training  of  the  New  Haven 
carpenters. 

In  the  second  period  we  find  that,  while  the  early  forms  sur- 
vive,  the   incorporated   lean-to   is   characteristic. 

In  the  third  period  this  lean-to  form,  as  well  as  the  old  type, 
survives ;  but  the  "  upright  "  house  comes  into  fashion,  as  in  the 
Connecticut  colony. 

There  was,  however,  in  New  Haven,  during  the  earliest  period, 
a  class  of  houses  which  seems  not  to  have  existed  in  Hartford  or, 
indeed,  elsewhere  in  New  England  —  with  perhaps  one  or  two  ex- 
ceptions  in    Massachusetts.      We   refer  to   the   four  large   dwellings 

—  almost  manor  houses,  as  that  phrase  is  generally  understood  — 
of  the  Reverend  John  Davenport,  Governor  Theophilus  Eaton,  Mr. 
Thomas  Gregson,  and   Mr.   Isaac  AUerton. 


96  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

We  shall  begin  our  study  of  the  exam]5les  with  one  of  these 
houses,  and  shall  set  forth,  so  far  as  we  can  gather  it,  what  is 
known    of    the   mansion   of    Governor    Eaton. 

Beside  this  house,  which  was  destroyed  more  than  a  century 
ago,  we  have,  in  striking  contrast  to  what  we  could  say  of  Hart- 
ford, only  two   buildings  of   this   early  date   to   offer. 

We   shall   discuss,   then  : 

I.      The    Theophilus   Eaton    House,    New    Haven,   c.   1640. 
H.      The    Henkv    Whitfield    House,    Guh.eord,    c.   1640. 
HI.      The    Baldwin    House,    Branford,    c.    1650. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


97 


Figure  j?  —Southwest  view  of  Eaton  House.    (From  Lambert. 

I.      The    Theophilus    Eaton    House. 

There  are  two  sources  from  which  we  obtain  all  that  we  know 
of  this  house.  The  first  is  an  old  woodcut  published  in  1838  by 
Lambert  in  his  History  of  The  Colony  of  New  Haven,  with  the 
statements  which  Stiles  and  Lambert,  in  their  writings,  have  made 
about  the  buildincr.  The  second  source — the  only  one  from  which 
there  is  no  appeal  —  is  the  inventory  of  the  Governor's  estate, 
"taken,  and  apprized  by  Mathew  Gilbert,  Jo:  Wakeman  and  Rich- 
ard Miles  in  the  twelveth  moneth:    1657." 

We  give,  in  Figure  47,  a  fac -simile  of  Lambert's  "Southwest 
view  of  Governor  Eaton's  House."  In  describing  the  building  he 
says' :  .  .  .  .  "  Gov.  Eaton  built  his  house  on  the  spot  which  is 
now  the  north  corner  of  Elm  and  Orange  streets.     It  was  built  in 


•  Edward  R.  Lambert.  History  of  The  Colony  of  New  Haven,  p.  52.  We  do  not  know  Lambert's 
authority  for  this  view,  but  he  was  a  painstaking  antiquary,  and  probably  had  access  to  traditions  and 
descriptions  and  perhaps  drawings  now  lost. 


98  EARI.Y     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

the  form  of  a  capital  E,  was  large  and  lofty,  and  had  21  fireplaces. 
Mr.  Davenport  had  his  house  on  the  west  side  of  Elm  street,  near 
State  street,  built  in  the  form  of  a  cross;  with  the  chimney  in  the 
center.  The  common  houses  at  first  were  small,  of  one  story, 
with  sharp  roofs,  and  heavy  stone  chimneys  and  small  diamond 
windows." 

Stiles  says :  "  Mrs.  Sherman,  aged  86,  ....  born  in  Gov. 
Jones's'  or  in  Gov.  Eaton's  house,  which  had  nineteen  fireplaces, 
and  many  apartments ;  .  .  .  .  that  Mr.  Davenport's  house  also 
had  many  apartments,  and  thirteen  fireplaces,  which  indeed  I  my- 
self well  remember,  having  frequently,  when  a  boy,  been  all  over 
the  house."' 

The  drawing  shows  five  chimneys.  If,  therefore,  I^ambert  is 
correct,  we  must  allow  four  fireplaces  in  each  of  four  of  the  chim- 
neys and  five  in  the  fifth.  If  Stiles  is  right,  we  must  assume 
four  fireplaces  in  each  of  four  chimneys  and  three  in  the  fifth. 
It  is  evident  that  one  of  them  must  be  in  error.  We  think  we 
can  make  it  appear  that,  unless  there  were  many,  out -buildings 
which  had  fireplaces,  or  unless  great  additions  had  been  made 
since    the    Governor's    time,    neither    writer   is    accurate. 

The  "  E "  plan,  as  it  is  called,  on  which  the  house  is  laid  out, 
was  a  very  common  form  in  the  manor  houses  and  even  in  the 
larger  cottages  of  the  England  of  Eaton's  time.'^  It  was  also  a 
very  old  form,  dating  from  the  thirteenth  century,  if  not  from 
the  twelfth,  or  even  earlier,  and  it  had,  in  its  long  career,  come 
to    be    the    expression    of    a    regular   and    well -recognized    arrange- 

'  This  same  house  is  meant.     Governor  Jones  married  (lovernor  Eaton's  daughter  Hannah. 
'  President  Ezra  .Stiles,  History  of  Three  of  the  Judges  of  King  Charles  I. ,  p.  63. 
'Ralph  Nevill,   Old  Collage  and  Domestic  Architecture  in  Sottthwest  Surrey. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT    HOUSES.  99 

ment.  The  great  hall  —  which  at  this  time  had  just  lost  its  full 
height  into  the  open  roof,  and  was  divided  into  two  stories  by 
a  floor'  —  occupied  the  central  block,  and  thus  formed  the  con- 
necting link  between  the  two  wings.  At  one  end  of  the  hall  — 
the  ancient  dais  end  —  and  thus  in  one  of  the  projecting  wings, 
had  been  placed,  from  time  immemorial,  the  private  rooms  of  the 
house.  At  the  other  or  "  screens  "  end,  and  thus  in  the  other 
projecting  wing,  had  been  for  a  long  time  the  "  offices,"  as  the 
English  call  them  —  the  buttery  and  the  pantry,  as  also  the  kitchen 
after  the  cookincf  ceased  to  be  done  in  the  sreat  hall  or  in  a 
separate  building  in  the  courtyard.  The  servants'  hall  was  in 
this  wing.  This  grouping,  which  can  be  very  clearly  seen  in 
Hambleton  Old  Hall,  Montacute,  and  other  great  English  houses 
of  which  Mr.  Gotch  gives  plans,-  must,  almost  certainly,  have  pre- 
vailed in   Governor  Eaton's  mansion. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  inventory,  and  see  whether  it  would 
conflict  with  the  scheme  we  have  outlined.  Accordinof  to  this 
document,  which  we  give  in  full  in  Appendix  I,  there  were  in  the 
house  —  we  follow  the  order  of  the  text  —  the  "  sreene  chamber," 
the  "  blew  chamber,"  the  hall,  the  parlor,  Mrs.  Eaton's  chamber, 
the  chamber  over  the  kitchen,  the  "other  chamber,"  the  garret, 
the  counting-house,  and  the  brew -house.  The  kitchen  is  men- 
tioned only  in  this  indirect  way,  and  no  pantry  or  buttery  is 
spoken  of,  though  the  cooking  utensils  are  all  inventoried.  Pos- 
sibly the  brew- house  may  have  included  the  pantry,  though  it 
may,  more  probably,  have  meant  a  separate  out-building.     Atwater, 

'This  change  occurred  about   1550. — Blonifield,  Hist.  Ren.  Arch.,  II.  p.  354. 

'^J.   Alfred  Gotch,  Archilfcturf  of  tin-  Renaissance  in   England.       For  Hambleton.  see  Part   I, 
p.  11-12,   Plate  21.     For  Montacute,  see  Part  II,  p.  7. 


100  EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

in  his  explanation  of  the  plan,'  conjectures  that  the  "  study "  men- 
tioned by  Mather  was  the  same  as  the  counting-house  of  the  in- 
ventory, and   this  is  no  doubt  correct. 

There  is  nothing  in  the  list  of  rooms  to  indicate  the  relation  of 
one  to  another,  except  that,  before  any  rooms  are  mentioned  at  all, 
but  after  the  list  of  kettles  and  the  item  of  253  pounds  of  pewter, 
there  comes,  just  before  the  item  of  a  "  cheny  bason,"  a  "  clocke  & 
a  brass  candlestick  at  Parloue  door."  This  might  look  as  if,  in 
spite  of  the  fact  that  no  room  is  named,  the  parlor  was  next  to 
the  kitchen,  in  which  the  clock,  a  small  one  with  a  short  pendu- 
lum, was  fastened  to  the  wall.  It  seems  so  strange,  however,  to 
put  in  the  kitchen  an  article  rather  rare  in  the  colony,  to  say  the 
least,  and  valued,  with  the  accompanying  candlestick,  at  ^3  12s  6d, 
that  we  have  assumed  the  clock  as  ticking  in  the  hall  and  the 
parlor   door   as   opening   out   of    that   apartment." 

In  the  centre  of  the  house,  then,  is  the  hall;  and  at  one  end 
of  it  are  grouped  the  private  rooms,  the  parlor  and  the  study  or 
counting-house,  with  the  main  staircase  leading  to  the  principal 
chambers  on  the  second  floor.  At  the  other  end  are  gathered 
the  kitchen  and  the  pantry ;  the  buttery,  if  there  was  one ;  the 
brew  house,  if  it  was  under  the  main  roof ;  and  the  summer 
kitchen,  if  such  a  room  existed.  Here,  too,  were  the  back  stairs, 
with    probably  an    outside   door. 

In  Figure  48  the  reader  will  find  a  plan  of  the  first  story  of 
Governor    Eaton's    mansion,    worked    out    upon    the     theory    given 


'  E.  E.  Atwater,  Hislory  of  The  Colony  of  New  Hnveit,  pp.  1 16,  117. 

'Rev.    Mr.    Hooker's  clock  was  in  his  new  parlor.     Inventory,  April  21,  164(3.  —  Conn.  Col.  Rcc, 
vol.  I,  p.  501. 

James  Richards,  of  Hartford,  in  1680,  left  a  clock  in  his  parlor.  The  clock  of  Rev.  Joseph 
Rowland.  Wethersfield.  November  24,  1678,  was  in  his  kitchen. — Hartford  Probate  Records  (MS.), 
under  those  names. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


101 


above.  There  is  nothing  in  existence  to  give  us  even  approximate 
sizes  for  the  rooms.  We  have  assumed  that  the  amount  of  furni- 
ture in  a  room  is  a  rough  guide  to  its  area  in  proportion  to  that 
of  the  others.  The  hall,  which,  of  course,  was  the  largest  room 
on  the  floor,  we   have   made   twenty  feet  wide  —  a   trifle   more   than 


Road  -  /sow  Ll/a  iT. 
Figure  48. 


that  in  the  Roger  Williams  house,  Salem.'  For  the  length  we 
have  taken  twenty-six  feet.  We  are  justified  in  assuming  these 
dimensions,  if  not  even  greater  ones,  by  the  furniture  which,  in 
order  to  bring  the  life  of  the  time,  as  Governor  Eaton  lived  it, 
more  vividly  before  the  eye,  we  have  drawn  on  the  plan  —  each 
piece   in   the    place   it    probably  occupied. 


'  This  is.  nearly,  nineteen  feet  seven  inches  wide.  The  hall  chamber,  where  measurements  can 
be  tal^en,  in  twenty  feet  and  one-half  inch  wide,  and  twenty-one  feet  four  and  one-half  inches  long. 
The  second  story,  however,  overhangs  seventeen  and  one-half  inches. 


102  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

The  hall  fireplace  we  have  put  opposite  the  entrance  door, 
which,  to  complete  the  "  E  "  shape  of  the  plan,  may  have  been 
provided  with  a  porch,  though  Lambert  does  not  show  one.  Two 
sets  of  andirons  are  inventoried  among  the  contents  of  this  room. 
Probably  only  the  "great  brass  Andirons,"  with  the  "doggs"  which 
held  the  back-log,  belonged  here.  The  "small  Andirons,"  though 
they  may  have  been  used  in  this  fireplace,  were  usually  kept  in 
the   blue   chamber,  where   no   fire-irons   are   recorded. 

The  drawing  table  —  a  rectangular  table  with  leaves  beneath  it 
which  could  be  added  at  each  end'  —  was  the  dining  table  of  the 
family,  and  stood  in  the  middle  of   the  room. 

The  round  table  valued  with  it — the  two  were  rated  at  ^i  iSs 
— we  have  put  in  the  alcove  at  the  right  of  the  chimney. 

The  "  cubberd  "  would  stand  near  the  door  to  the  kitchen.  It 
may  have  been  only  a  set  of  shelves  with  doors,  but  it  probably 
served  more  or  less  as  a  sideboard.  It  was  worth  only  about  ten 
shillings,  as  the  long  forms  rated  with  it  were  hardly  worth  more 
than  two  shillings  apiece.  It  had  a  cloth  upon  its  top.  These 
two  forms,  or  benches,  are  shown  in  the  plan  —  the  one  drawn  up 
to  the  table,  the  other  before  the  fire. 

The  "  great  chaire  w'!'  needleworke,"  Governor  Eaton's  special 
seat,  stood  at  the  corner  of  the  fireplace,  just  as  its  ancestor,  the 
heavy,  almost  immovable,  oaken  seat  of  the  mediaeval  merchant 
had    stood. 

The  two  "high  chaires  setwork "  —  a  sort  of  woven  pattern  — 
would  stand,  with  the  four  hicrh  stools  with  setwork  seats,  at  the 
side  of  the   room,  for  they  were   rather  expensive  for  ordinary  use. 


'  Dr.  I.  W.  Lyon,  Colonial  Furnilure  in  New  England,  p.  218.     Atwater  quotes  Mather  as  saying 
that  Eaton's  household  sometimes  numbered  thirty  persons.      If  this  were  so,  the  immediate  family 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  -103 

The  four  "  low  chaires  setwork,"  each  worth  a  little  over  a  third 
of  the  value  of  one  of  the  high  ones,  are  shown  around  the  fire 
and  at  each  side  of   the  entrance  door. 

The  two  low  stools  with  setwork  seats  are  near  the  fire. 

Two  Turkey  carpets  may  have  been  used  on  the  floor  or  may 
have  been  spread  over  the  tops  of  the  tables.  There  is  nothing 
in  the  word  itself  by  wliich  the  use  can  be  determined.  Together 
they  were  valued  at  £2. 

The  clock  we  have  hung  on  the  wall  next  to  the  parlor  door. 
It  was  a  small  affair,  placed  near  the  ceiling,  where  its  short  pen- 
dulum could  not  interfere  with  the  people  moving  about  the  room.' 

The  six  "high  wyne"  stools  would  be  scattered  about,  near  the 
walls  and    the  fireplace.      They  were    probably  a    plain   high   stool." 

There  are  several  cushions  in  the  room.  Some  of  these  were 
for  the  forms,  others  for  the  plain  wooden  stools,  as  needed,  or  for 
the  floor;  we  should  now  call  them  hassocks.  The  high  chairs  of 
that  day  presupposed  foot -stools  or  cushions  on  account  of  the 
cold   air  along    the   floors. 

The  stair,  placed  at  the  left  of  the  hall,  we  have  shown  as  an 
open -well  flight. 

At  one  end  of  the  west  wing  of  the  house  is  the  counting- 
room  or  study,  with  a  chimney.  None  is  mentioned  in  the  in- 
ventory, but  Lambert  shows  one  in  his  view.  At  the  other  end 
is  the   parlor,  which   also   has   a   fireplace. 

In  the   parlor  we    have  : 


followed  an  old  custom  and  dined  at  the  round  table  next  mentioned,  while  the  domestics  and  de- 
pendents sat  at  the  great  drawing  table. 

'Dr.  Lyon.  Colonial  Furniture,  cited  above,  pp.  233,  246.  All  the  furniture  here  named  can  be 
admirably  studied  in  that  work. 

'Were  these  stools  used  in  taverns,  and  so  called  because  they  would  not  be  injured  by  the  wine 
spilt  on  them  ? 


104  EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 

A  livery  cupboard.  This  was  like  our  sideboard  or  like  a  what- 
not. It  was,  as  it  appears  in  the  colonies,  of  two  stages — the  lower 
open,  the  upper  partly  closed.'  This  one  was  valued  at  ten  shil- 
lings, very  nearly  the  worth  of  the  cupboard  in  the  hall. 

A  bedstead  and  a  trundle  bed.  This  use  of  the  parlor  for  a 
sleeping- room  is  characteristic  of  early  New  England.  Just  what 
was  the  appearance  of  the  bedstead  we  have  no  means  of  knowing, 
beyond  the  fact  that  it  was  a  four-poster.  We  have  no  examples 
of  colonial  bedsteads  of  that  early  date,  and  those  generally  illus- 
trated as  English  t3'pes  were  much  more  elaborate  than  this  could 
have  been,  for  it,  with  the  trundle-bed  and  a  short  table,  was  con- 
sidered to  be  worth  only  ^i  2s  6d. 

A  set  of  curtains  and  a  valance,  together  with  the  feather  bed, 
the  blankets,  and  the  rest. 

A  high  chair,  six  high  stools  with  green  and  red  covers,  a  low 
chair,  and  two  low  stools. 

Great  brass  andirons,  dogs,  fire-pan  and  tongs. 

The  furnishing  of  the  counting-house  or  study  is,  as  the  reader 
can  see  by  consulting  the  inventory,  somewhat  obscure.  We  have 
assumed  that  there  belonged  in  it : 

A  cupboard  with  a  chest  and  drawers  valued  at  £^.  This  was 
all  one  piece  of  furniture,  and  was  much  like  the  combined  desk 
and  high  bookcase  which  came  later  —  that  is,  it  was  a  set  of 
drawers  with  a  shelf  over  them,  and  above  this  shelf  a  cupboard 
like  that  of  the  livery  cupboard.  We  doubt,  however,  if  the  Gov- 
ernor used  this  for  writing.  For  this  he  employed  the  next  pieces 
on  the  list  : 

A  square   table  and  a  chair. 

'  L)r.   I.yon,   Colonial  /•'uriiiluri,  pp.  44,  46,  47,  el  seq. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  105 

Two  iron-bound  chests  contained  perhaps  the  plate,  valued  at 
^107  lis,  part  of  which  reappears,  valued  at  ^27,  in  the  Jones 
inventories. 

Books,  a  globe  and  a  map,  valued  at  ^48  15^- — quite  a  sum  in 
those  days.  These  could  hardly  be  in  the  brew -house,  as  the  in- 
ventory, literally  followed,  might  make  us  think.  They  are  men- 
tioned between  an  item  of  "  2  Steele  malt  mills  "  and  another  of 
"one  Cart  with  wheels,"  etc.,  a  location  which,  by  its  analogy,  goes 
to  show  that  the  clock  of  which  we  spoke  was  not  necessarily  in 
the  kitchen. 

In  the  other  wing  we  have :  in  front  the  kitchen,  in  the  rear 
the  "  offices  " — we  have  no  guide  to  them,  but  have  left  the  rooms 
blank — with  the  back  stair  between. 

In  these  two  rooms  —  or  perhaps  three  —  was  disposed  the  fol- 
lowing array  of  kitchen  furnishing — very  large  compared  with  that 
of  the  ordinary  households,  and  remarkable  even  as  against  that  of 
Rev.  i\Ir.  Hooker  of  Hartford.  There  were  in  the  fireplaces  or  on 
the  walls  of   the  rooms,  either  hung   or  on  shelves  : 

Two  pairs  of  racks  [spit  racks];  three  spits;  a  jack.  This  was 
a  machine  for  turning  the  spit.  It  was  sometimes  run  by  the  draft 
of  the  chimney -flue. 

Tongs;  bellows;  fire  irons;  smoothing  irons. 

Four  gridirons;  a  frying-pan;  three  dripping-pans;  five  pans;  a 
little  brass  pan. 

A  fish  plate;  an  apple  roaster;  a  still. 

Nine  trays;  two  platters;  a  salt;  a  galley  pot. 

The  last  was  "  a  small  earthen  glazed  pot,  especially  one  used 
by  apothecaries  for  ointment  and  medicine.'  " 

'  Murray's  Oxford  Dictionary. 


106 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


Fourteen  earthen  pots. 

A  great  brass  kettle;  a  lesser  kettle;  a  little  kettle;  a  little 
brass  kettle. 

An  iron  posnet;  two  little  brass  posnets ;  chafiiiQ;  dishes.  A 
posnet  was  a  dish  shaped  like  a  porringer,  but  used,  as  the  metal 
shows,  for  cooking. 

A  great  iron  pot,  weighing"  fifty  pounds ;  a  little  iron  pot,  ten 
pounds;  a  brass  pot,  thirty-one  pounds. 

F"our  brass  ladles ;  three  brass  skimmers ;  four  brass  candlesticks. 

Three  little  baskets;  a  "  voyder  "  or  large  basket  for  table  waste. 

In  pewter  two  hundred  and  fifty -three  pounds. 

For  othcj  furniture  there  were:  a  chopping-board,  a  little  wheel, 
an  old  cupboard,  and  a  plank  on  "  Tressills." 

In  Figure  49  we  give  a  conjectural  restoration  of  the  second 
story. 


Figure  49- 


The  chief  chamber  of  the  mansion,  the  green  chamber,  we 
should  naturally  place  over  the  hall.  We  are  prevented,  however, 
by  an  item  in  the  inventory  of  Governor  Jones,  which  we  give  in 
part  in  Appendix  I.  Here  we  find  the  green  chamber,  with  its 
hangings,  mentioned    again,   and,   along    with    it,   the    "  hangings    of 


■      EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  107 

the  middle  chamber."'  This  must,  of  course,  have  occupied  the 
main  body  between  the  two  wings,  and,  as  it  was  not  the  same  as 
the  green  chamber,  we  are  forced  to  put  the  latter  over  the  parlor 
and  the  chamber  of  Mrs.  Eaton  over  the  hall.  It  is  possible  that 
the  hall  was  two  stories  high  in  the  Governor's  day,  and  that  the 
floor  for  the  middle  chamber  was  put  in  later.  It  is  not  probable, 
however. 

The  green  chamber  contained,  as  the  plan   will  explain  : 

A  cypress  chest,  in  form  like  those  still  possessed  by  many 
families  of  Connecticut.^ 

A  cupboard  with  drawers;  what  was  called  also  a  "press  cup- 
board." ^ 

A  bedstead  and  all   its  paraphernalia. 

A  couch,  "  with  the  appurtenances." 

A  short  table;  six  low  stools;  a  looking-glass;  brass  andirons; 
fire-pan;  tongs;  dogs. 

There  were  also  a  tapestry  carpet,  probably  for  the  floor,  worth 
^4 ;  the  hangings  for  the  walls ;  six  cushions ;  and  a  long  window 
cushion. 

A  great  chair  and  two  little  chairs. 
All  this,  like  the  presence  of   the   bed   in  the   parlor,  harks  back 
to   the    time   when    the    bed    room    was    a    sitting    room,   and    when 
people  received  their  friends  therein.^     For  it  must  be  remembered 


'  It  is  interesting  to  note  tliat  in  Eaton's  time  the  green  hangings  were  considered  worth  £,1 
I5J-,  the  blue  worth  £\  ioj-.  and  those  of  Mrs.  Eaton's  chamber,  with  the  window  curtains,  £\  \os. 
In  Jones'  time  the  green  hangings  are  rated  at  £^,  and  tliose  of  the  middle  chamber  at  30s.  In 
Mrs.  Jones'  inventory  appear  only  "green  curtains  in  the  middle  chamber,"  valued  at  £1  \os. 
See  Appendi.x   I. 

^  Dr.    Lyon,    Colonial  Fitrni/iiri^,   pp.    2,   6,   S,   (*/  St-q. 

'The  same,  pp.   50,   52,   53,  el  sc-<f. 

*  Compare  the  king's  levce. 


108  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

that  it  was  not  the  parlor  that  became  a  bed  room,  but  the  bed 
room,  with  its  carpet  —  whence  the  term  "carpet  knight"  —  which 
became  a  sitting  room  and  finally  took  the  monastic  name  of  parlor. 

Over  the'  hall  was  Mrs.  Eaton's  chamber,  so-called,  probably 
because  she,  "  with  her  watchers,"  occupied  it  as  a  sick  room  at 
the  time  of  her  husband's  death." 

Here,  beside  the  bedstead  and  its  furnishings,  and  several  cases 
for  bottles,  there  were : 

A  little  cupboard,  with  drawers;  two  chests;  a  desk;  a  little 
table. 

This  table  held  the  desk,  which  was  a  small  portable  affair. 

Two  chairs;  two  "high  wyne  "  stools ;  three  low  stools. 

A  pair  of  brass  andirons;  dogs;  fire-pan;  tongs;  fire  iron; 
poker. 

An  iron  back.  This  was  a  cast-iron  back  to  the  fireplace,  of 
which  a  few  other  instances  occur. 

There  were  also  hangings  and  window  curtains  in  this  room. 
The  blue  chamber,  over  the  counting-house,  was  used  as  a  sort 
of    linen    closet.     There   was   little  furniture    there   except   the   bed- 
stead.    The  inventory  gives  merely: 

A  cupboard  with  drawers.  This  is  the  press  cupboard  again, 
this  time  worth  ^3  6s  against  ^2    155  for  that  in  the  green  room. 

A  short  table ;  two  trunks  and  an  iron-bound  case ;  a  looking- 
glass. 

No  fire  tools  are  mentioned.  Perhaps,  as  we  suggested,  the 
second  pair  of  andirons  in  the  hall  belonged  here. 

In  the  chamber  over  the  kitchen  was  a  bed  and  what  is  dis- 
tinctly called  a  press. 

'Atwater,  History,  p.  414. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  109 

The  other  chamber,  which  would  seem  from  this  expression  to 
have  been  in  the  same  wing,  contained  only  a  "  half  headed  bed- 
steed,"  a  trundle-bed,  a  chest,   and   a  stool. 

The  garret  held  a  half -headed  bedstead. 

We  think  it  will  be  evident  from  the  plans  that  it  would  be 
impossible  for  the  house,  as  it  stood  at  Governor  Eaton's  death, 
to  contain  twenty-one  fireplaces,  or  even  nineteen.  There  were 
not  fire  irons,  indeed,  for  all  the  hearths  we  have  shown,  and 
those   have  reached   only  the  comparatively  modest   number  of  ten. 

What  additions  the  house  underwent  we  have  now  no  means  of 
knowing.  To  judge  from  Lambert's  wood-cut,  which  must  show 
the  building  as  it  looked — or  was  said  to  have  looked — just  before 
it  was  pulled  down,  the  only  possible  way  of  adding  rooms  must 
have    been    at  the    back,  behind    the   hall    and    the   projecting  wings. 

The  ground  in  front  of  the  mansion,  extending  forward  to  the 
street  —  the  "front  yard"  of  our  common  speech  —  was  treated  as  a 
"  fore  court,"  with  its  walk,  grass  plots,  and  hedges.  The  existence 
of  the  hedges  is  betraved  by  the  trarden  shears  of  the  inventory. 
We  are  also  justified  in  imagining,  on  one  side  of  the  house,  the 
western,  it  is  most  likely,  a  box-bordered  garden,  with  its  walks  of 
clean  gravel  or  of  grass,  and  its  flower  beds  filled  not  only  with 
gillyflowers  and  other  quainter  blooms,  of  which  the  names  sound 
oddly  to  our  ears,  but   with   mint,   rue,  lavender,  and  other  herbs. 

What  finally  became  of  this  house  we  do  not  know.  It  was 
destroyed  in  some  wa)'  before  1730,  for  Stiles,  who,  when  a  boy, 
was  familiar  with  Mr.  Davenport's  house,  claims  no  personal  know- 
ledge of  this   inansion.' 


'A  map  of  New  Haven,  drawn  in  1724.  and  another  dated  174S,  assign  Governor  Eaton's  home 
lot  to  the  Rev.  Joseph  N'oyes,  who  became  pastor  in  1716.  The  house  which  in  this  view  occupies 
tlie  lot  does  not  resemble  Lambert's  picture  of  the  Katon  mansion.     This  may  mean  nothing,  as  all 


no  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

The  liouses  of  the  Reverend  John  Davenport,  Isaac  Allerton, 
and  Thomas  Gregson  are  said  to  have  been  as  fine,  or  nearly  as 
fine,  as  that  of  Governor  Eaton,  but  we  know  less  about  them. 

Davenport's  house,  Lambert  says,  had  thirteen  fireplaces,  and 
was  built  in  the  form  of  a  cross,  with  the  chimney  in  the  center. 
There  must  have  been  at  least  four  chimneys  for  that  number  of 
fireplaces,  and  it  is  not  easy  to  see  how  the  central  chimney  was 
used.'  Davenport's  inventory  does  help  us  solve  the  riddle.  He 
died  in    Boston,  and  his  effects  were  not  listed  in  rooms. 

Thomas  Gregson's  inventory  is  a  little  better  for  our  purpose. 
He  had  a  parlor,  a  hall,  and  chambers ;  an  arrangement  which  re- 
quires nothing  more  elaborate  than  the  two-room,  central -chimney 
plan. 

Allerton's  inventory  tells  us  nothing,  but  we  learn  a  few  details 
about  his  house  from  the  traditions  which  Stiles  collected  in  his 
search  for  evidence  in  regard  to  the  regicides.  In  speaking  of 
the  story  that  Mrs.  Eyers,  Allerton's  granddaughter,  concealed  the 
judges  there,'^  Stiles  says,  quoting  his  informant,   Mrs.  Sherman: 

"  Mrs.  Eyers  had  on  one  side  of  the  room  a  large  wainscoted 
closet,  which  she  has  often  viewed  and  admired  ;  it  had  cut  lights 
at  top,  full  of  pewter  and  brass,  and  a  wainscot  door,  which,  when 
shut,   could    not   be   distinguished    from   the   wainscot,   and    all    over 


the  dwellings  in  New  Haven,  according  to  the  artist,  were  very  nearly  alike,  and  therefore  we  can 
not  trust  the  drawing  implicitly.  Hoth  maps  are  given  in  Atwater"s  Ilislory  of  The  Cily  of  New 
Haven,  p.  24  and  p.  30.  This  work  is  not  to  be  confused  with  the  same  author's  History  of  The 
Colony  of  tVe~M  Haven. 

'If  we  trust  the  map  of  174S  this  house  had  two  low  wings  or  additions.  These,  with  a  porch 
and  a  lean-to,  would  give  the  cross  shape.  Stiles  had  no  way  of  discriminating  the  ages  of  the 
different  parts  of  the  building.  The  plan  was  originally,  perhaps,  of  the  ordinary  central -chimney 
type. 

'  Atwater  has  shown  that  this  tradition,  in  the  form  in  which  Stiles  gives  it,  can  not  be  true. 
History  of  the  Colony  of  New  Haven,  pp.  434-5,  note. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  Ill 

the  door,  and  on  the  outside  of  the  closet,  was  hung  braizery  and 
elegant  kitchen  furniture,  that  no  one  would  think  of  entering  the 
closet  on  that  breast  work.  .  .  .  her  father'  was  Mr.  Isaac  AUer- 
ton,  of  Boston,  a  sea  captain,  who  ....  built  a  grand  house 
on  the  creek,  with  four  porches,  and  this,  with  Governor  Eaton's, 
Mr.  Davenport's,  and  Mr.  Gregson's,  were  the  grandest  houses  in 
town.  The  house  highly  finished;  he  had  a  fine  garden,"  with  all 
sorts  of  flowers  and  fruit  trees,     ....'" 

Stiles  further  says:  "Captain  Willmot,  aged  82,  remembers  the 
story  of  their  being  hid  in  Mrs.  Eyers's  house He  re- 
members the  old  house,  that  it  was  grand,  like  Mr.  Davenport's, 
which  he  also  knew,  and  all  of  oak  and  the  best  of  joiner's  work. 
There  was  more  work  and  better  joiner-work  in  these  houses,  he 
says,  than  in  any  house  now  in  town.  He  is  a  joiner,  and  helped 
to  pull  down   Mrs.  Eyers's  house. 

"Judge    Bishop      ....     remembers    Mrs.    Eyers 

He  remembers  her  old  house,  which  he  says  was  one  of  the  grand- 
est in  town,  like   Mr.   Davenport's,  and  fit  for  a  nobleman."'^ 

It  is  strange  that  any  one  of  these  four  mansions,  which  seem 
to  have  made  so  great  an  impression  on  the  minds  of  men  from 
the  days  of  Hubbard,^  the  Massachusetts  historian,  to  those  of  Presi- 
dent Stiles  and  his  informants,  should  ever  have  been  pulled  down. 
It  is  also  a  distinct  loss  to  New  Haven,  and,  indeed,  to  all  New 
England. 


'Grandfather.     Atwater,  History,  pp.  434-5.   nole. 

'This,  as  Mrs.   Sherman's  own  reminiscence,  cannot  relate  to   the  garden  of  the  older  .Allerton. 
It  may  describe  that  of  his  son. 

'  Stiles,  History  of  The  Judges,  cited  above,  pp.  64,  66.     The  book  was  published  in   1 794. 

■*  Born   1 62 1 . 


112 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


II.      The    Henrv   Whitfield    House. 


The  stone  house  which  bears  this  name  stands  some  distance 
south  of  the  Green  at  Guilford,  on  the  present  road  to  the  railway 
station.  It  was  built,  tradition  asserts,  by  the  Reverend  Henry 
Whitfield,  in  1639.'  As  the  settlers  of  Guilford  did  not  arrive  at 
New  Haven  till  the  summer  of  that  year,"  the  building  must  have 
proceeded  with  reasonable  dispatch  if  it  was  finished  before  cold 
weather.      It  probably  was  not  occupied  till    1640. 


'  Smith,    History  of  Guilford.      Palfrey,  History  of  Ntw  England,   II,   p.    59,   note. 

*Atwater,  History  of  New  Haven,  p,  ito,  et  saj.  Uev.  Thomas  Ruggles.  in  his  MS.  Histor\ 
of  Guilford,  says  that  the  settlers  went  at  once  to  their  new  lands,  "though  it  was  almost  winter,' 
Mass.  Hist.    Coll ,  vol,   IV,  p.    1S4, 


EARLY  CONNF.CTICUT  HOUSES.  113 

The  house,  in  its  present  condition,  consists  of  an  L  shaped 
block,  whicli  faces  southwest.  The  internal  arransfement  shown  in 
our  drawing,  Figure  54,  gives  little  or  no  clue  to  the  ancient  plan. 
In  fact,  except  the  chimney  and  the  walls  shown  in  black  in  the 
main  part,  with  perhaps  the  foundations  of  the  walls  and  of  an 
other  chimney  shown  in  black  in  the  ell,  there  is  nothin";  original 
about  the  building.  The  whole  ell  is  new.  The  southeast  gable 
has  been  rebuilt,  the  walls  of  the  main  part  have  been  raised,  and 
the  stonework  has  been  concealed  by  a  coat  of  stucco.  The  roof 
is  new,  while  the  floors  and  the  interior  woodwork  are  all  later 
than  Whitfield's  time.'  In  fact  the  house  which  Whitfield  built 
can  hardly  be  said  to  e.xist,  save  as  a  shell  which  would  with  diffi- 
culty be  recognized  bv  its  reverend  owner. 

It  may,  to  many  readers,  seem  strange  that,  as  this  house  is  of 
stone,  it  should  have  suffered  from  alterations  so  much  more  than 
the  wooden  houses.  This,  however,  is  almost  always  the  case. 
The  Bull  house  at  Newport,  a  stone  dwelling  of  the  same  date  as 
this  house,  is  almost  unrecognizable.  It  is  much  easier  to  take 
out  and  rebuild  a  floor  in  a  stone  house  than  in  a  wooden  one, 
for  the  walls  will  stand  while  vou  are  at  work,  and,  as  the  ends 
of  the  beams  rot  in  the  masonry,  there  is  more  reason  for  the  re- 
pairs. If  the  roof  leaks,  moreover,  the  upper  part  of  the  stone  wall 
suffers  as  much  as  the  occupants  of  the  house,  and  it  is  easy  to 
take  down  the  work  and  to  rebuild  it  wholly  or  in  part.  An  ex- 
amination of  this  house  will  convince  anv  one  that  nothing  remains 
of  the  original   interior  construction. 

If,  therefore,  we  had  to  take  the  building  as  it  stands,  the  re- 
storation of  Whitfield's  original  abode  would  be  fully  as  difficult  as 

'  Traces  of  fire  are  said  to  have  been  found  during  the  last  repairs. 


114  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

that  of  Governor  Eaton's  mansion,  for  \vc  have  here  no  inventory 
to  help  us.' 

Fortunately,  however,  there  are  several  old  views  and  a  set  of 
plans  of  this  house  which  enable  us  to  go  back  another  step  in 
the  history  of  the  building.  Barber,  in  his  Connecticut  Historical 
Collections,  published  in  1828,  a  very  valuable  book,  gives  a  view 
of  the  exterior.  Lambert,  in  his  History  of  the  Colony  of  New 
Haven,  gives  practically  the  same  picture  in  1838.  Several  years 
later,  in  i860.  Palfrey,  in  the  second  volume  of  his  History  of  Ncza 
England,  gives  three  plans  of  the  house,  made  by  Mr.  Ralph  D. 
Smith,  of  Guilford,  and  two  views  of  the  exterior,  together  with  a 
descrij^tion  furnished  by  Mr.  Smith.  All  these  last-named  draw- 
ings appear  again  in  the  history  of  Guilford,  which  was  compiled 
from  Smith's  manuscripts  after  his  death.  They  appear  once  more 
in  Atwater's  History  of  the  Colony  of  Nezv  Haven.  A  view  of  the 
front  of  the  house  is  also  given  in  an  early  number  of  St.  Nicholas? 
An  old  steel  engraving  of  the  north  side  of  the  building  shows  the 
ancient  chimney  of  the  ell.  Mr.  Samuel  Adams  Drake,  in  his  book. 
Our  Colonial  Homes,  has  published  a  half-tone  from  a  pliotograph 
of  this  drawing. 

Let  us  consider  first  the  views  of  the  outside.  They  agree,  sub- 
stantially, with  the  drawing  we  give  in  Figure  51,  which  we  have 
made  from  an  old  photograph  —  a  stereoscopic  view  dating  from 
the  early  sixties  at  least.  They  show  that  the  old  northwest  chim- 
ney has  not  been  seriously  tampered  with  ;  that  the  present  chimney 
near  the  center  of  the  ell  roof  replaces  one  formerly  at  the  end  of 


'  The  house  was  sold  September  20,  1659.  to  Major  Robert  Thompson,  whose  inventory  men- 
tions the  dwelling,  but  specifies  no  rooms.  Mrs.  Cone,  the  present  owner,  tells  us  that  "the  ac- 
knowledgement of  deed  was  from  his  (Henry's)  brother,  Nathaniel  Whitfield,"  who  was  a  "mer- 
chant of  London." 

''St.  Nicholas,  vol.   II,  p     706. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


115 


that  ell,  which  then  was  much  shorter  than  it  now  is ;  that  the 
present  chimney  at  the  southeast  end  of  the  main  house  is  new; 
and  that  the  easternmost  of  the  three  windows  in  the  second  story 
of  the  main  front  is  a  late  insertion.  None  of  the  drawings  show 
clearly  the  texture  of  the  wall.  The  older  ones  do  not  pretend  to 
notice  it.     Neither  Smith's  drawing  nor  that  in  the  .SV.  Nicholas — 


r^ 


"Xhitfiel-d 


Figure  51.— Whitfield  House,    (h'rom  an  old  photograph.) 

which  was  evidently  taken  from  a  photograph — explain  it.  The 
old  photograph  shows  some  sort  of  plaster  over  the  masonry,  appar- 
ently whitewashed  or  painted  white,  which  must  be  that  coat,  or  a 
renewal  thereof,  which  Barber,  in  1828,  said  was  put  on  "  15  or  20 
years  since."'    The  present  covering  of  cement,  which  is  quite  dark 


'J.   W.   Barber,   Connecticut  Historical  Collections,  p.  2ii. 


116 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


in   color,   is   not   the   same   as   that   shown    by   this   old   stereoscopic 
view,  but  dates  from  the  repairs  of   iS68. 

Smith's  drawings  differ  from  the  photograph  in  one  respect. 
They  show  in  the  south  corner  of  the  second  story,  in  the  main 
house,  a  curious  window  occupying  the  extreme  edge  of  the  angle  ; 
and  give  a  huge,  Dutch -looking  wall -anchor  of  iron  next  to  the 
window  on  the  gable  end.  This  opening  is  a  loophole  which  Smith 
says  had  existed  at  that  point,  but  which  had  been  built  up  when 
he  WTote,  though  the  stone  floor  of  it  still  remained.  Barber  and 
Lambert,  in  their  drawings,  which  are  older  than  this  we  refer  to, 
show  the  wall-anchor,  but  not  the  loophole,  which  they  do  not  even 
mention.     In  fact,  the  so-called  loophole  is  a  restoration  by  Smith, 


4^, 


Figure  52.— Smith's  Drawings. 


and  an  incorrect  one  at  that.  For  the  old  j^hotograph  which  we 
have  followed  in  Figure  51  shows  very  distinctly  a  walled-up  win- 
dow at  that  corner,  but  not  at  the  edge  as  Smith's  drawings  claim. 
Instead  of  this,  it  is  back  from  the  edge  just  the  thickness  of  the 
gable  wall.  It  is  not  a  loophole  at  all,  but  simply  one  of  the  origi- 
nal windows,  with  possibly  a  mate  to  it  on  the  other  face  of  the 
corner,  leaving  the  solid  pier  between.  Smith  must  have  found 
the  mark  of  the  old  jamb  on  the  inside  wall,  and  have  mistaken  the 
side  of  it  on  which  the  opening  had  been.  Some  large  stone  at 
the  floor  line,  or  at  the  level  of  the  window-sills,  made  him  think 
that  the   window,  which  he   says   was   only  about   a  foot   wide,  was 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


117 


^Yhitfield 


at  the  corner;  a  most  unlikely  place  for  any  sound  constructor  to 
put  it,  and  a  place  where  there  would  be  no  special  advantage  in 
having  a,  loophole,  with  almost  the  whole  northern  side  of  the 
house  unprotected. 

The   windows   now  in   the   house  can  make  no  claim  to   be  orisi- 
nal.       Smith    says    they    were    filled    with    leaded    glass    within    the 

memory  of  people  living  in  his 
day,  but  even  those  were  not  the 
sash  of  the  original  windows, 
which,  as  this  old  walled-up  open- 
ing shows,  were  very  much  smaller. 
Smith  says,  in  the  account  he 
gave  Palfrey,  that  the  pitch  of 
the  roof  was  si.xty  degrees.  The 
present  roof,  whicli  is  slated,  is 
not  so  steep  as  that,  though  the 
angle  of  it  is  more  than  forty- 
five  degrees.  A  glance  at  o  u  r 
section  in  Figure  53  will  show, 
however,  that  the  old  roof,  the 
plate  of  which  was  lower — the 
old  walls  were  only  fifteen  feet 
high — could  not  have  been  of  that  pitch  even  had  its  cornice  been 
just  above  the  old  windows  unless  its  ridge  were  just  below  the 
old  chimney  cap.  It  is  not  possible  that  this  could  have  been  the 
case,  for  the  old  photographs  show  no  such  height  of  ridge.  The 
evidence  they  give  refutes  Smith's  statement. 

Let  us  now  consider  the  plans.     That  which  we  give  in  Figure 

54  shows  the   house  as   it  was   in    1896,  and  dates  only  from   1868. 

If  we  turn   now  to  the   plans  as   Smith   gives   them,  we  see,  in 


Figure  53— Cross  Section,  looking  east. 


118 


EAKLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Figure  55,  a  disposition  wliich,  though  earHer  than  that  now  to  be 
seen  in  the  house,  is  far  from  being  that  of  the  ancient  dwelling- 
Some  change  is  evident,  for  instance,  in  the  passage  at  the  head 
of  the  stairs  in  the  second  story.  The  stair  scheme  is  older  than 
the  partitions  contrived  about  the  head  of  the  flight,  but  the  house 
is   older  than   the  stairs. 

There  was,  according  to  Smith,  a 
hiding-place  arranged  at  the  end  of 
the  garret  in  the  ell,  on  either  side  of 
the  chimney.  What  seemed  to  be  the 
wooden  gable  was  not  such,  but  was 
merely  a  partition  two  or  more  feet 
inside  the  true  gable  which  overhung 
the  stone  end  of  the  house.  A  glance 
at  the  attic  plan  in  Figure  55,  and  at 
the  sketch  of  the  old  north  side  of  the 
house,  in  Figure  56  —  redrawn  from  a 
photograph  of  the  same  view  which 
Mr.  Drake  used  —  will  explain  what 
Smith  meant.' 

If  these  plans  of  Mr.  Smitii's  can  not  show  us  the  arrange- 
ment of  Mr.  Whitfield's  house  they  are  still  very  valuable,  and 
they  give  us  a  clue  to  work  upon ;  for  the  walls  they  show  are 
undoubtedly  those  built  in  1639-40,  or  are  on  the  same  lines. 
These  lines  it  would  be  difficult  to  recover,  in  the  ell  at  least,  if 
these  old  drawings  did  not  explain  them. 

In   fact.  Smith's   plans   show   an   arrangement  which   dates   from 


Figure    54.— WHiTFitLD    Housl— (Ht 

PRHSENT  PLAN. 


'  In  reply  to  our  question  Mr.  Drake  courteously  relcrred  us  to  Mr.  H.  S.  Wedniore.  of  Guilford, 
wlio  furnished  the  photograph. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


119 


some  repairs  made  between  1769  and  1795.  Thompson's  heirs 
seem  to  have  neglected  the  building;  for  Rev.  Thomas  Ruggles,' 
ill  his  historical  sketch  of  Guilford,  says  that  the  house,  "with  a 
comparatively  small  expense,  might  be  made  the  most  durable  and 
best  house  in  the  town."  Ruggles'  MS.  was  dated  February  3, 
1769.  The  editor,  in  behalf  of  the  Massachusetts  Historical  So- 
ciety, which  in  1795  published  the  history  among  its  Collections, 
interpolates,  in  brackets,  the  statement :  "  That  house  has  since 
been     handsomely     repaired."       Thompson's    descendants    sold    the 


Figure   55.— Whitfield   House  — Smith's   plans. 

estate  to  Wyllys  Eliot,  October  21,  1772.  He,  in  turn,  deeded 
the  property,  November  8,  1772,  to  Joseph  Pynchon,  whose  son 
•Thomas  sold  to  Jasper  Griffing,  May  27,  1776.  The  tenure  of 
the  first  two  was  rather  short  for  much  repairing,  though  Pyn- 
chon may  have  done  somewhat.  As  Grififing  owned  the  house  till 
1800,  it  is  fair  to  assume  that  he  was  the  one  who  "handsomely" 
restored  the  old  building.  His  descendants  have  held  the  estate 
since  his  death. 

Just  how  much  of  the  arrangement  shown  by  Smith  goes  back 


'The   MS.   was  printed  in  Afass.   Hisl.    Coll..  vol.    IV,  p.  182:  vol.  X,  p.  go.      Mr.   Ruggles  was 
settled  at  Guilford,  March  26,  1729. 


120 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


of  1769  we  can  not  say.  His  ]ilan,  however,  represents  in  its  dis- 
position an  old  type  which  we  find  in  the  Sheldon  house  at  Hart- 
ford, and  which  certainly  dates  from  at  least  the  early  years  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  when  the  house  was  still  owned  by  Thomp- 
son's descendant's.  For  there  is  a  tradition  that,  before  Griffing 
bought  the  house,'  another  chimney,  which  stood  at  the  south  end 
of  the  main  building,  had  been  taken  down.  If  we  restore  this 
chimney  we  come  at  once  to  a   typical   form  —  principally  confined 


Figure    56.— Whitfieid   House  — the  north  side.' 


to  Virginia,  but  with  some  examples  in  New  England  —  the  house 
with  the  central  entry  and  stair,  and  the  chimney  at  the  end  of 
each   room  at  the  side  of  the  passage. 


'  For  the  history  of  the  property  and  for  the  traditions  connected  with  the  house,  we  are  in- 
debted to  the  courtesy  of  Mrs.  Sarah  B.  Cone,  of  Stockbridge,  Mass.,  a  descendant  of  Jasper 
Griffing,  and  the  present  (iSgg)  owner  of  the  house.  The  wall -anchor  is  said  to  have  been  put  in 
when  this  chimney  was  destroyed. 

'  See  Chapter  X  of  this  book. 

'  This  view  we   have   redrawn   from   a   photograph   of   a  steel   engraving   which    appeared    about 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


121 


Another  step  brings  us  to  the  original  plan  of  the  house  given 
in  Figure  57,  which  is  based  on  tradition,  inherent  reasonableness, 
and  likeness  to  old   English  examples. 

According  to  a  tradition  handed  down  in  the  Griffing  family,  the 
front  part  of  the  house  was  originally  one  large  room,  open  to  the 
roof,   and  thus  without  any  second  floor.      There   was  a  chimney  at 


Figure   57.— Whitfield   House,  a  restoration. 


each   end   of  this  great    hall,   which   was   used   as   a   meeting-house, 
it    is    said,    as    well    as    a    parsonage,    and    which,    in    its    two- story 

In   fact,    as   we 


height,  followed    the    halls  of    medizeval    England 


1862  in  the  I.aiiies'  Repository  of  Cincinnati  Mr.  Mjron  B  Benton,  now  of  I.eedsville.  N.  Y., 
made  tlie  original  drawing.  He  has  authenticated  tl)e  view,  with  certain  corrections  which  are  em- 
bodied in  our  drawing. 

Since  this  book  went  to  press  we  have  received  from  the  Rev.  Dr.  William  G.  .Andrews,  of 
Guilford,  a  print  from  an  old  negative  of  this  same  view  of  the  house.  .\  half-tone  of  this  unique 
view,  which  confirms  the  accuracy  of  Mr.  Benton's  drawing,  we  print,  by  the  courtesy  of  Dr. 
Andrews,  at  the  end  of  this  article. 


122 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


have  already  said,  it  was  at  about  the  middle  of  the  sixteenth  cen- 
tury that  these  high  walls  were  divided  in  two  two -stories  by  a 
new  floor.  In  the  eastern  ell  was  the  kitchen  with  the  chamber 
over  it. 

The  stairs  in  this  arrangement  could  only  have  been  in  the 
small  square  space  in  the  re-entrant  angle  between  the  two  parts 
of  the  building. 

All  this  is  perfectly  reasonable,  It  represents  one  type  of 
manor-house  in  use  in  England  as  early  as  the  twelfth  century; 
for  though  the  chamber  was  generally  at  the  opposite  end  of  the 
hall  from  the  buttery,  yet  there  were  no  doubt  many  instances,  of 
which  the  manor  at  Padley'  is  one,  in  which  the  chamber  was 
over  the  offices. 

There  are  also  in  England  instances  which  will  show  how  com- 
mon an    arrangement   in   stone   houses   that  must  have   been    which 

we  have  assumed — the  L  shape  with 
the  stairs  in  the  re-entrant  angle. 
At  Sutton  Courtenay,  Berkshire,  is  a 
fourteenth  century  manor-house  of 
the  L  plan,  which,  as  Figure  58'  will 
explain,  has  its  stair  in  precisely  the 
position  to  which  we  have  assigned 
the  flight  in  this  restoration  of  Whit- 
field's house.  The  plan  of  Little 
Wenhani  Hall,  Suffolk,  which  also 
has  the  L  shape,  though  it  is  built  of  brick,''  is  another  example 
of  the  re-entrant  angle  as  a  place  for  the  stair. 


Figure  58.— Sutton  Courtenay.  Berkshire. 


'  Sydney  O.  Addy.   The  Evolution  of  the  English  House,  p.  140. 

''This  Figure   has   been    redrawn   from   'rurner   and    Parker,    Some   Aeeount  of  Domestic  Archi- 
tecture in  England,  etc  ,  vol  II,  p.  272. 

"  The  same,  vol.  I,  p.  152-3.     This  house  is  of  the  thirteenth  century. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


123 


The  reason  for  the  size  of  the  hall  we  have  already  hinted  at 
in  saying  that  the  dwelling  was,  it  is  said,  a  meeting-house  as  well 
as  the  home  of  the  pastor.  In  order  to  reconcile  these  two  uses, 
Whitfield  employed,  tradition  says,'  movable  partitions  wherewith 
to  divide  the  enormous  room.  These,  of  which  we  give  a  draw- 
ing in  Figure  59,  were  a  sort  of  Venetian  blind  on  a  large  scale, 
of  horizontal  wainscot,  with  each  board  hinged  to  its  neighbor 
above  and  below,  and  strung  at  each  end  upon  a  rope.  Two 
lengths  of  board,  and  thus  two  sec- 
tions in  each  partition,  were  needed 
to  reach  across  the  room.  When 
not  in  use  they  were  drawn  up  by 
the  ropes  and  fastened  to  the  tie- 
beams  of  the  roof.  When  in  use 
they  were  lowered  and  bolted  to 
the  floor.  How  many  of  them 
there  were  we  do  not  know.  Prob- 
ably there  were  two,  perhaps  only 
one.  If  there  were  two,  as  the  two 
fireplaces  seem  to  indicate,  the  cen- 
tral   entry   scheme,    with    a    room    at 

each  side,  was  the  original  idea  of  the  builder,  an  idea  made  per- 
manent by  the  partitions  set  up  by  some  descendant  of  Major 
Thompson  —  if  not  by  the  major  himself — and  transmitted  to  our 
own  day  by  the  present  partitions  in   the   main   part  of  the   house. 

Let  us  now  sum  up  the  history  of  the  house  as  we  understand  it. 

As   built  by   Whitfield,  it  consisted   of  a   two-story   hall    with   an 
ell   which  contained  a  kitchen   and  a  chamber. 

Some  descendant  of    Major   Robert   Thompson   put   in   the   two 


Figure  59— Folding   Partitions.  Whitfield 
House. 


'Mrs.  Cone,  who  received  the  tradition  from  her  grandmother,  born  in   1767. 


124 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


floors  and  divided  the  liouse  by  a  central  entry  in  wliicli  he  placed 
the  stairs.  This  was  about  1700-10.  He  thus  had  in  the  front 
part  two  rooms,  each  with  a  fireplace,'  and  in  the  ell  a  kitchen, 
with  a  pantry,  or  more  probably  a  bedroom,  where  the  stairs  had 
been.      Upstairs  he  had  three  chambers. 

Lack  of  light  induced  some  later  descendant  to  take  down  the 
southeast  chimney  and  to  put  in  the  windows  which  old  drawings 
show  in  the  south  gable.  Jasper  Grififing  repaired  the  house  at 
some  time  between  1776  and  1795,  and  to  him  is  perhaps  due  the 
arrangement  which  Smith's  plans  show.  Jasper's  son,  Nathaniel, 
who  inherited  the  house  from  him  in  1800,  plastered  the  stone 
walls  on  the  outside. 

In  1S68  Mrs.  Cone,  who  had  inherited  from  her  mother,"  took 
down    the   old  ell   and   rebuilt   it   in   its  present  condition,  raised   the 

walls  about  two  feet 
and  a  half,  and  put  on 
a  new  roof.  She  also 
put  in  the  third  window 
in  the  second  story  of 
the  front  —  the  others 
probably  date  from  Jas- 
per Grififing's  repairs  — 
and  built  the  present 
chimney  on  the  south 
gable,  nearly  in  the 
place  of  that  which  was 
originally  there. 


The  North  Sides  Bfiore  Alteration,    (l-'oin  .1  phutograph.) 


'  If  we  accept  the  traditional  fireplace  in  the  south  end  wall. 

'"Krcderick  C.rilting  inherited  from  his  father,  Nathaniel,  1S45.  Mary  G,  Chiltenden  inherited 
from  her  brother.  Fred  R.  Griffinjj,  1S52.  I  inherited  from  my  mother,  Mary  G.  Chittenden,  in 
lS68."     Letter  of  Mrs.  Cone. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


125 


II. 


The    Baldwin    House. 


This  is  an  ancient  affair  recently  abandoned  and  now  going 
to  ruin,  although  it  is  the  oldest  house  in  Branford,  and  is  of 
great  interest  and  value  to  the  student  of  colonial  work.  It  stands 
on  the  outskirts  of  the  village,  on  the  road  to  New  Haven.  It 
was  built,  we  do  not  know  when  or  by  whom;  but  its  date,  judg- 
ing from  the  many  examples  with  which  it  can  be  compared,  can 
not  be  later  than  1650.  It  may  be  much  older.  It  possesses  the 
sill  projecting  into  the  rooms,  a  feature  which,  however  common 
it  may  once  have  been  when  more  of  the  oldest  houses  were 
standing,  we  have  so  far  found  in  but  three  houses  in  New  Eng- 
land, in  two  of  which  the  documentary  evidence  for  an  early  date 
was  convincing;  the  Hempstead  house,  New  London,  1643;  the 
Roger  IVIowry  house.  Providence.  1655;  and  the  Shadrach  Man- 
ton  house,  Manton,  R.  I.,  which  documents  carry  back  to  16S0, 
but   which   must  be  far  older  than   that. 


lliC. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     H()USp;S. 


We  have  in  this  house  a  clear  case  also  of  an  added  lean-to, 
another  good  sign  of  early  date,  for  the  ancient  clapboarding  can 
still  be  seen  on  the  back  wall  of  the  main  house  in  the  lean-to 
chamber,  as  the  section  shows. 

The  house  faces  south.  All  the  rooms  in  the  main  part  of  it 
are  plastered.  In  the  east  room,  the  parlor,  the  summer  has  been 
cased,   and    there   is   a   very  good   buffet,   or  corner   cupboard.     The 


^    BaLDWI/N  HoU^E  flE.5T  fLOOR.PLAN 

Braatoed.  -^°''    ^"^ 


FlGURK  6l 


whole  side  of  the  room  around  the  fireplace  is  covered  with  panel- 
line  of  later  date   than   the   house. 

The  porch  or  entry  is  very  wide  here,  as  in  the  Fiske  house, 
and,  indeed,  in  most  of  the  houses  in  the  New  Haven  colony. 
The  stairs,  which  are  left-hand,  have  no  balusters,  but  are  en- 
closed by  a  wooden  partition. 

They  are  built  with  winders  at  the  bottom,  and  these  tenoa 
into  a  finely   wrought  oak   post,   three   inches  square,   which   runs  to 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


127 


the  ceilinsr  and  to  which  the  strins;  of  the  straight  run  above  is 
fastened.  The  steps  are  constructed  like  those  in  the  Whitman 
house,  with  a  slight  difference  of  detail.  Beneath  these  stairs  those 
to  the  cellar  go  down  from  the  hall,  which  was  also  the  kitchen. 
The  cellar  steps  are  of  six -inch  rise  and  twelve  run,  and  are  of 
solid  pieces  of  oak,  except  at  the  bottom,  where  a  rough  stone 
step  serves  as  a  foundation  to  the  whole. 


Baldwm  House- 

E>K.A/SrOED.-''*''i 


Figure  62. 


The  cellar  is  under  the  parlor  only.  It  has  one  outside  en- 
trance and  only  one  window.  The  masonry,  of  the  red  sandstone 
of  the  district,  is  excellent.  The  mortar  appears  to  be  of  a  clay 
mixed  with  shell  lime.'  The  chimney  is  of  stone  to  a  point  just 
below    the   roof,   and   there    are   signs    that    it   had   once   been    stone 


For  an  analysis  of  this  mortar  see  Chapter  X  of  this  book. 


128  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

above  that  point,  and  that  the  present  Ijrick  topping -out  is  a 
much   later  addition. 

In  the  hall  the  stone  fireplace  is  quite  large.  The  summer, 
here  uncased,  shows  its  beautiful  chamfer-stop  of  an  old  form, 
clearly  cut,  and  the  girts  and  posts  arc  also  bare.  The  i)osts  here 
do  not,  in  the  second  stor\',  flare  from  the  bottom,  as  in  many 
cases,  but  have  a  regular  projection  at  the  top,  which,  curiously 
enoush,  is  turned,  not  in  the  usual  direction  across  the  house  in 
the  line  of  the  chimney  and  end  girts,  but  lengthwise  of  the  house 
in  the  direction  of  the  front  and  back  girts.  We  have  never  seen 
another  instance  of  this  in  any  of  the  Connecticut  settlements.' 
In  the  first  story  the  posts  have  bracketed  heads,  also,  which  is  a 
very  old  arrangement;  and  these  are  turned,  as  the  section  shows, 
in   the   usual   direction,  with   the  girts  and   across  the  house. 

In  the  second  story  the  stairs  go  to  the  attic  with  the  same  con- 
struction and  arrangement  which  we  saw  below,  even  to  the  dimin- 
ished  height  of  the  top  step   in  each   flight. 

In  the  parlor  chamber  the  summer  is  cased.  In  the  hall  cham- 
ber it  is  not.  In  the  lean-to  chamber,  as  we  have  said,  the  old 
outside  clapboarding  is  still  to  be  seen. 

The  kitchen  fireplace  is,  like  the  lean-to  which  contains  that 
room,  a  later  addition  to  the  chimney.  There  is  no  clapboarding 
at  the  back  of  the  chimney  in  the  second  story,  for  if  was  pulled 
off  to  allow  the  masons  to  put  the  new  flue  into  the  chimney 
when   they  built  the  new  fireplace  in    the  kitchen. 

The  roof  is  original  and  is  well  framed,  without  either  collai^- 
beams  or  the  purlins  so  common  in  the  New  Haven  jurisdiction. 
The  garret  floor  is  of  oak. 

'It  occurs,  about   1715,  in  the  Spencer  house,  East  Greenwich,   Rhode  Island. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT'     HOUSES 


133 


1683 


I.      The   Thomas    Painter    House. 


West  Haven  has  its  "  Green,"  like  the  other  old  towns  of  the 
colony.  East  of  this  central  rectangle,  on  the  north  side  of  Main 
street,  stands  the  house  which  Thomas  Painter  bought  of  Mor- 
rison in  1695,  and  which  Morrison  built  in  or  about  1685.  The 
building  has  undergone  some  alterations,  but  it  has  been  well  cared 
for,  and  it  is  very  easy  to  restore  the  original  plan. 

The  house  has  a  lean-to,  built  as  part  of  the  original  fabric. 
Otherwise  it  is  of  the  regular  central -chimney  type,  with  no  over- 
hang. 

The  entrance  porch  is  very  wide,  a  trait  characteristic  of  these 
New  Haven  dwellings,  which  possess  nearly  two  feet  more  of  width 
in  their  porches  than,  in  general,  do  the  houses  of  the  Connecticut 
people.  The  staircase,  which  may  be  original,  though  we  think 
it  is  not,  is  a  very  fine  one  with  moulded  string  and  rail  —  see 
the  chapter  on  Construction  —  and  with  turned  balusters,  which  are 


134 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


of  double  curve,  and  thus  of  the  same  profile  above  and  below 
the  center.  A  half- baluster  is  placed  against  the  square  post.  All 
this  woodwork  is  of  oak.  It  is  to  be  noted  that  we  have  never 
yet  seen  in  Connecticut,  west  of  New  London,  the  flat  balusters 
with  sawn  contour  which  are  so  common  in  Newport  and  in  the 
southein   ]3arts  of   Rhode   Island. 


\nDiTiort 


t: 


^auth-Pai/^tep  Hou_5E 
Wej>t  Mave^ 


itv  i-         I  Hall 


y L 


Rest  3toe.y  Plsn 


Figure  64. 


The  cellar  is  under  the  hall  —  the  western  room — only.  It  is  at 
present  reached  by  stairs  from  the  kitchen,  as  the  plan  will  show. 
It  is  whitewashed,  but  the  oria:inal  mortar  was  of  shell  lime.  Some 
of  the  original  square-hewn  joists  in  the  first  floor  can  still  be  seen 
overhead.  The  others  have  apparently  been  replaced  by  newer 
sticks  of  rougher  make. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


135 


The  hall  has  a  cased  summer,  posts,  and  girts,  and  some  fine 
panelling  at  the  fireplace  end.  It  contains  also  a  very  good  buffet 
or  corner  china  cupboard.  The  parlor  is  very  much  like  it,  but 
is  a  considerably  shorter  room. 

In  the  lean-to  chamber  can  be  seen  the  framing  of  the  wall 
between  that  chamber  and  those  in  the  front  of  the  house.  Here 
the  studs  are  still   in   place,  but  the  clapboards,  and   even   the  nail- 


CtwiBte 


•'S*% 


Jaiith-kaintee.  nouiE- 
We5t  Have/1  p 


-T^S: 


Section 


Figure  65. 


marks  which  would  betray  the  former  presence  of  them,  are  want- 
ing; and  the  fact  that  the  pins  of  the  joints  in  the  northwest  post 
had  never  been  cut  off  close  to  the  wood  proves  that  this  was 
only  an  inside  wall  and  that  the  lean-to  could  not  have  been  an 
addition. 

The  chimney,  up  to  a  point  just  below  the  roof,  where  the 
later  brick  top  begins,  is  of  stone  laid  in  clay.  The  roof  is  origi- 
nal  and  is  of  a  kind  very  much   in  fashion  in  this  colony.     There 


]M 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


are  no  collar -beams  and  the  boarding,  which  is  vertical,  that  is, 
from  plate  to  ridge,  is  nailed  to  purlins  framed  between  the  raft- 
ers. All  the  framino",  as  well  as  the  roof  and  floor  boards,  is  of 
oak. 


.5ECXIO/S  o/s  Li/JE  A-B 
Figure  66.    The  Thomas  Painter  House.— Longitudinal  Section. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  129 

As  this  very  interesting  and  important  liouse  was  deserted,  we 
had  an  excellent  opportunity  to  examine  it  thoroughly  and  to 
study  its  arrangement  and  construction.  The  plan  and  the  section 
given  above  will  show  both  the  one  and  the  other  more  clearly 
than  many  pages  of  description.  F"or  the  more  technical  details 
of  the  framing  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  chapter  on  Construction. 

The  presence  of  a  small  window  in  one  of  the  wooden  parti- 
tions of  the  building,  and  the  intricacy  of  the  later  dividing  par- 
titions, makes  us  think  that  the  house  may  at  some  time  have 
been  a  tavern ;  while  the  width  of  the  entry  and  staircase,  and 
especially  of  cellar  stairs,  makes  it  possible  that  such  may  even 
have  been  its  original  vocation. 


CHAPTER    VI 


THE   SECOND   PERIOD   IN   THE   NEW    HAVEN    COLONY. 

1675-1700. 

IJFIE  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century  was  marked 
in  all  the  New  England  colonies  by  an  enlargement  of 
the  area  of  settlement.  The  outlying  territory  of  each 
of  the  older  towns  was  now  safer  for  habitation;  and  the  increase 
of  the  population,  whose  main  support  was  still  in  farming,  drove 
the  younger  men  to  dwellings  at  some  distance  from  the  old  cen- 
ters. Immigration  from  England  had  ceased,  in  any  great  amount, 
long  before,  and  the  colonists  had  now  to  develop  the  country 
by  their  own  resources.  Commerce  had  not  attained  the  vast  pro- 
portions which  good  Governor  Eaton  hoped  for,  and  for  which  he 
and  Davenport  laid  out  New  Haven  on  so  grand  a  scale.  Here, 
as  in  Hartford,  the  settlers  of  the  older  generation  were  nearly  all 
dead,  and  their  grandchildren  were  already  coming  upon  the  stage 
as  men  and  women. 

All    these    facts    had    a    levelling    influence   upon    the    houses   of 
the  colony.     In   material   possessions  the  people  stood  between   the 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  131 

wealth  of  the  original  settlers  and  the  accumulating  riches  of  the 
early  eighteenth  century.  We  see  no  more  great  houses  like 
those  of  Eaton,  Davenport,  Gregson,  and  Allerton.  The  dwell- 
ings are  more  uniform  in  size  and  in  a]3pointments.  The  carpen- 
ters, too,  have  changed  somewhat  in  their  methods.  Thev  have 
accommodated  themselves  to  new  needs  and  to  a  new  climate,  and 
have  lost  some  of  their  old  English  traditions. 

The  lean-to  comes  into  use  in  this  period,  sometimes  even  yet 
as  an  addition  to  accommodate  a  growing  family,  but  often  now 
as  a  part  of  the  original  dwelling;  a  concession  to  the  need  of 
more  apartments  in  the  house,  and  of  a  better  separation  between 
the  different  parts  of  the  household.  We  have  the  kitchen  no 
longer  in   the  hall,   but  in   the   new  lean-to. 

The  stone  chimney  still  remains  in  the  center  of  the  house. 
Brick  may  be  used,  but  it  is  still  rare  and  is  mostly  confined  to 
the  topping-out  above  the  roof,  which  in  some  cases  may  be  of 
this  date,  though  most  of  the  examples  are  later. 

The  parlor  is  used  as  before.  The  hall,  as  we  have  remarked, 
is  freed  from  the  cooking,  but  either  room  may  still  contain  a 
bed.  The  chambers  are  the  same  as  before,  for  the  lean-to  cham- 
ber is  little  more  than  a  lumber-room,  with  perhaps  a  bed  for  one 
of  the  apprentices  or  servants. 

The  overhang,  always  of  the  hewn  type  in  the  New  Haven 
jurisdiction,  must  have  existed  during  this  period,  though  we 
have  no  certain  examples  of  it.  It  is  common  in  the  period  be- 
yond. 

In  New  Haven  itself  there  seems  to  be  but  one  house  of  this 
period  which  is  still  standing.  This  is  the  Trowbridge  house,  on 
George  street,  which  dates  from  i6So. 


132  EARLY     CONNI'.CTICUT     HOUSES. 

The   examples   we   have   to  study  are   in    the   other  towns   of   the 
original   confederation.      They  are: 

I.      The    Thomas    Painter    House,  West    Haven,  c.   1685. 
n.      The    Stowe    House,   Mh.ford,    1685-90.  ^ 

HI.      The    Goldsmith -Cleveland    House,  Southold,  c.   1680. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


1  o" 


II.      The    Stowe    House. 


The  present  sedgy  harbor  of  Milford  was  once  of  sufficient 
commercial  importance  to  warrant  a  town  wharf,  which  still  exists 
on  the  same  site,  and  which  is  reached  by  an  ancient  thorough- 
fare now  called  Wharf  street.  Upon  the  western  side  of  this, 
nearly  at  the  water-side,  stands  the  Stowe  house,  famous  in  the 
Revolutionary  annals  of  the  town. 

It  is  one  of  the  most  interesting  houses  in  all  the  colony, 
though  it  has  undergone  considerable  alteration.  As  it  now  stands 
it  has  a  lean-to  which  was  original.  It  also  possesses  a  central  pas- 
sage or  entry  and  two  chimneys,  neither  of  which  are  of  the  same 
date  as  the  house. 

A  glance  at  Figure  68  will  show  how  peculiar  the  plan  is. 
According  to  all  analogy  the  chimney  should  be,  and  perhaps 
originally  was,  in  the  central  passage  where  now  a  very  inter- 
esting and  artistic  flight  of  stairs  is  backed  up  against  the  wall 
which    separates    the    front    rooms    from    the    lean-to.       The    south- 


138 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


ern  chimney,  standing  behind  the  summer,  appears  on  the  outside 
above  the  ridge.  The  northern,  which  cuts  away  the  girt  at  the 
second  floor  level  as  well  as  one  of  the  original  braces  in  the 
back  wall  of  the  northern  chamber  of  the  second  story,  goes 
through  the  roof  in  the  lean-to  and  does  not,  in  a  front  view 
of  the  house,  appear  against  the  sky. 

The  roof  is  old,  built  with  the  purlin  and  ridge  scheme  already 
mentioned  as  characteristic  of  the  New  Haven  colony.  It  can 
hardly  be  original  unless  the  peculiar  position  of  the  southern 
chimney  is  also  original,  for 
there  are  no  signs  of  patch- 
ing after  the  removal  of  a  cen- 
tral stack.  If  the  south  chim- 
ney is  original,  how  could  the 
north  room  be  heated .''  For 
the  north  chimney  is  certainly 
a  late  addition.  The  clearest 
solution  lies  in  assuming  that 
the  old  stone  chimney  in  the 
present  entry  was  taken  down 
and  that,  as  it  was  desired  to  make  two  tenements  of  the  building, 
the  two  separate  chimneys  were  put  in.  This  must  have  been 
done  before  the  Revolution,  for  the  stairs,  which  we  give  in  Figure 
I  ID,  are  of  an  old  type  and  belong  to  at  least  the  first  quarter  of 
the  eighteenth  century.  They  are  the  only  dog-legged'  stairs  we 
have  ever  seen   in  these  old  houses. 

The    northern  end    is    most    probably   an    addition.     The    house 
was  originally  a  single -room   building  with   an  end   chimney  where 


MiLroRD 


riE^TTLOOIiPLAAl 


Figure  65. 


'  A  stair  in  which  there  is  only  one  post  at  the  turn  and  in  which  the  rails  are  over  each  other 
is  called  dog -legged. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES.  139 

the  stairs  now  are,  and  with  a  small  entry  in  front  of  that  chim- 
ney, so  that  the  door  was  in  the  same  position  as  that  which  it 
now  occupies. 

The  extremely  great  projection  of  the  cornice,  attained  as  the 
section  shows,  see  Figure  io6  in  chapter  on  Construction,  is  in- 
teresting, but  is  rather  late. 


/ 


140 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 


QoLDsniTH  — 

Cl-EAVELAND, 
HOU.SE         To~/i  St. 


>  KoBAR,Ti  L^^tc . 
50VTH0LD 

FfGURE    69. 


5KE.LETO/S  PlA/N 


III. 


The    Goldsmith -Cleveland    House. 


The  people  of  Southold  came  from  the  county  of  Norfolk  in 
Old  England.  They  were,  Atwater  thinks,  the  passengers  in  a 
ship  which  Davenport,  in  a  letter  to  his  friend  Lady  Vere,  says 
was  expected  shortly  to  arrive.'  The  settlement  which  they  made 
at  Yennicook,  as  the  Indians  called  Southold,  Long  Island,  was 
at  first  directly  under  the  control  of  New  Haven,  and  it  remained 
a  part  of  the  New   Haven  group  until    1662,  when   it  went  over  to 


'  Atwater,  Hislorv  of  New  Haven,  pp.  162,  163,  note. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


141 


the  Charter  government  of  Connecticut'  In  1665,  after  the  cap- 
ture of  New  Amsterdam  by  the  English,  it  was,  in  the  boundary 
adjustment,  brought  under  the  "government  of  his  Royal  High- 
ness the  Duke  of  York."- 

There  is  one  house,  still  standing  in  Southold  which  belongs 
to  this  period.  It  has  been  moved  from  the  main  street  to  a  lane 
which    runs    from    that    street    toward    the    north. 


It    is    a    single- 


GoLD5A\lTH-      E.I_EVATIOyS  OF  OUTJIDE'WALL 
HOV..3E     Southold  '^''^■ 


Figure  70. 


room,  story-and-a-half  structure,  with  the  summer  and  girts,  and 
it  once  had  an  end  chimney  which  never  appeared  on  the  out- 
side, and  which  was  taken  down  when  the  house  was  moved.  The 
work  is  very  rough  and  is  of  little  interest. 

All  the  other  houses,  and  there  were  sev'eral  of  considerable 
interest,  among  which  the  Barnabas  Horton  and  the  Goldsmith- 
Cleveland  ranked  with  the  best,  have  been  destroyed. 


'  Atwater,  History,  pp.  463-4. 

'  Palfrey,  History  of  New  England,  II,  p.  595. 


142 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


The  people  seem  to  have  preferred  a  low,  small  dwelling,  gen- 
erally of  one  story,  like  the  Moore  house  in  Figure  71. 

Of  the  Goldsmith- Cleveland  house  we  give  a  plan  and  an  ele- 
vation of  the  frame  of  one  end.  These  drawings  will  explain  very 
clearly  what  was  left  of  the  building  in  1894.  The  bearings,  it 
will  be  seen,  were  rather  short,  a  fact  which  accounts  for  the  pecu- 
liarity which  the  house  shows  in  having  no  summer. 


OOUTHOLD 


SaJBi^I^^S^^*-*— 


Figure  71. 


CHAPTER    VII 


THE    THIRD    PERIOD    IN    THE    NEW    HAVEN    COLONY, 

1700-1750. 


HE   lean-to  house  which    we  saw  in   the  second  period  in 
New   Haven   went   over  into  the   period   we   have   now  to 

study.       It    seems    to    have    been    a    favorite    form    which 

persisted  side  by  side  with  the  later  type  characteristic  of  the  first 
half  of  the  eighteenth  century,  and  it  probably  even  survived  into 
the  years  closely  preceding  the  Revolution.  The  full  two -story 
house,  two  rooms  deep,  appears  here  as  in  the  north  during  this 
period,  and  side  by  side  with  it  still  lives  on  the  old  type  of  one 
room  in  depth.  The  former  type  here,  as  in  Hartford,  is  a  direct 
development  from  the  central -chimney  lean-to  house;  and  with 
that  house  it  undergoes  a  curious  transformation  not  apparent  else- 
where, which  marks  very  clearly  the  slowness  of  the  transition  from 
the  old  framing  to  that  in  vogue  in  later  times.  This  peculiarity 
consists  in  leaving  out  the  summers  in  the  first  story  and  retain- 
ing them  in  the  second.  The  advent  of  plastering  is  responsible 
for  this.  The  desire  to  keep  the  plastered  ceiling  level  led  the 
carpenters,  in  the  new  houses,  to  lessen  the  depth  of  the  old 
beam   in  the  down-stairs  rooms  so  that  the  bottoms  as  well  as  the 


144  EARI.V     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES. 

tops  of  the  joists  it  carried  were  flush  with  it,  and  the  latliing 
could  be  nailed  over  the  whole.  The  cracks  in  the  ceiling,  caused 
by  the  slirinking  of  the  stick  or  li)'  the  springing  of  the  floor  which 
it  was  not  stiff  enough   to  hold   firmly,  show  that  this  was  the  case. 

In  the  Fiske  house  and  in  the  Caldwell  house,  both  in  Ciuil- 
ford,  we  have  examples  of  this  in  two -story  houses.  In  the  I)Cn- 
jamin  house,  Milford,  we  have  an  instance  in  a  house  with  a 
lean-to.  In  two  of  these  cases  the  summer  appears,  as  usual,  in  the 
second  story,  in  the  ceiling  of  the  chambers. 

The  next  step,  of  course,  was  the  abandoning  of  the  summer 
in  the  second  story  also.  This  took  place  about  1750,  some  twenty- 
five  years  later  than  the  first  step.  Here,  in  contrast  to  what  we 
find  in  Rhode  Island,  the  southern  settlements  seem  to  have  been 
very  little,  if  any,  more  conservative  than  the  northern  and  to  have 
clung  little,  if  any,  longer  to  the  old  framing.  The  New  Haven 
carpenters  had  left  the  summer  out  of  the  first  story  of  their 
houses  before  the  craftsmen  of  Connecticut  dropped  it  altogether. 
In  that  case  they  might  be  considered  as  in  advance  of  their  north- 
ern neighbors,  who,  when  they  changed,  suppressed  both  summers 
at  once. 

Connecticut  Hall,  which  is  now  the  oldest  building  of  Yale 
University,  and  which  bears  the  date  of  1750,  has  the  summer 
system  of  framing  in  its  floors,  though  its  walls  are  of  brick.  The 
beams,  too,  are  panelled  on  their  soffits  in  exactly  the  same  way 
as   the  summer  in   the  soutli   parlor  of  tlic   Webb   house. 

An  overhang  of  small  dimensions,  often  only  one  inch,  and 
never,  so  far  as  we  have  seen,  exceeding  six  inches  in  its  projec- 
tion, is  quite  characteristic  of  houses  of  this  period.  Its  occur- 
rence on  the  ends  of  the  houses  in  the  second  story  is  a  good 
suide   to   the   date   in   lean-to   houses.     If   it   occurs,    the   lean-to   is 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  145 

generally   an  addition.     If  it  does   not,   the  lean-to   may  usually  be 
looked  on  as  a  part  of  the  original  house. 

The  two -story  house  once  established,  the  development  of  the 
plan  produced  the  four- room  house,  with  central  passage  and  two 
chimneys,  which  here  are  very  commonly  at  the  end  of  the  house, 
as  in  the  Sheldon  \\'oodbridge  in  Hartford.  Later  on,  after  the 
Revolution,  the  large  square  house  with  hipped-roof  and  wall-chim- 
neys appears,  a  type  which  does  not  confront  us  in  Hartford  and 
which  somehow  rather  seems  to  be  a  sea-board  creation  to  be 
found  at  Salem,  Providence,  New  London,  and  New  Haven,  with, 
of  course,  characteristic  variations  in  all  these  places. 

The  use  of  brick  in  this  period,  while  more  common  than  in 
the  others,  was  not  universal.  We  still  find  many  chimneys  of 
stone  in  Guilford.  Many  stacks  are  of  stone  with  brick  topping 
out.  The  brick  houses  so  common  north  of  the  city  of  New 
Haven,  houses  with  gambrel  roofs  and  with  one  chimney  or  two 
in  each   end  wall,  are  much  later  than  this  period. 

We  have  three  houses  to  discuss: 

I.      The    Fiske- Wildman    House,  Guilford,  c.   1720. 
IL      The    Caldwell    House,  Guilford,  c.   1740. 
HI.      The    Benjamin    House,   Milford,  c.    1750. 


146 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


I.      The    Fiske-Wildman    House. 


Guilford  was  laid  out  around  a  rectangular  "  Green."  From 
the  south  end  of  this,  continuing  the  street  which  bounds  the 
open  space,  runs  the  New  York  and  Boston  stage  road,  the  colo- 
nial post -road,  a  prolongation,  along  the  Sound,  of  the  old  "path 
which  leadeth  to  Pequot,"  which  ran  from  Providence  to  New 
London. 

On  this  Boston  road,  perhaps  an  eighth  or  a  quarter  of  a  mile 
from  the  Green,  stands  the  Dr.  Fiske  house,  to  give  it  a  fami- 
liar name,'  one  of  the  largest  as  well  as  one  of  the  most  pictur- 
esque dwellings  in  Guilford.  It  is  a  wooden  house,  with  a  central 
chimney  topped-out  with  brick,  and  it  has  a  long  lean-to  in  the 
rear.     This    lean-to,   though    very    old,   is    not    original,    and,    if    we 


It  is  the  property  of  Mr,  F.  J.  Wildman. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


14^ 


consider  the  plan,  where  the  oldest  work  is  shown  in  black,  we 
shall  see  that  we  have  here  a  survival  —  a  house  of  the  old  two- 
room,  hall -and -parlor  type. 

From   a   view   of  the   house   it  would   not  seem   possible   that   it 
could   have    been    built   as    late   as    1720,'   but,   on   closer  study,   we 


Fl5KE-PAIiA\Cl.EE  fLOOE.  PlAAJ 

HoY5E         OvlLFObD  = 

Figure  73 


must  admit  that  the  evidence  in  support  of  that  date  is  very  pow- 
erful. 

In  the  first  place,  the  great  width  of  the  house,  nineteen  feet 
or  thereabout,  in  the  clear,  and  the  considerable  height  of  the  two 
stories,  argue  very  strongly  for  the  late  date. 

In   the  second   place,  the  summer  does  not  appear  in  either  of 


'  The  builder  is  said  to  have  been  Ebenezer  Parmelee,  the  clockmaker. 


148 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


the  lower  rooms.  We  might  suspect  that  the}'  had  been  hewn 
away,  especially  as  there  are  two  parallel  cracks  in  the  ceiling 
which  betray  the  presence  of  a  beam  flush  with  the  floor  joists. 
This  suspicion,  however,  receives  a  heavy  blow  in  the  second 
story,  for  the  summers  are  lacking  —  to  all  appearance  —  even  here, 
nor  have  they  been  hewn  off,  since  they  are  still  to  be  seen  in 
the  attic,  the  bottoms  of  them  flush  with  those  of  the  floor  joists, 
the  tops  projecting  above  the  garret  floor. 

If  it  were  not  for  the  treatment  of  the  summers  in  this  house 
and  in  another  like  it,  to  be  described  later,  we  might  be  inclined 
to  ignore  the  width  of  the  rooms  and  the  height  of  the  stories; 
for  the  Rocjer  Williams  house  in  Salem,  which 
dates  from  1634-40,  is  almost  as  wide  in  the  clear 
as  this  building,  and  the  stories  of  it  are  nearly,  if 
not  quite,  as  high.  Moreover  the  I*"iske  house  has 
on  all  four  sides  of  the  orioinal  dwellino:,  an  over- 
hang'  which,  at  the  first  sight  thereof,  would  make 
us  claim  an  early  date  for  the  mansion.  For  this 
projection  is  of  the  hewn  type  employed  elsewhere  in  the  New 
Haven  jurisdiction,  and  used  in  the  Hollister  and  Patterson  houses 
in  the  Connecticut  colony,  the  type,  that  is,  in  which  the  lower 
half  of  the  post  is  hewn  away  to  let  the  upper  half  come  forward. 
But  the  overhang  is  not  exactly  like  that  in  either  of  the  houses 
we  have  mentioned,  nor,  indeed,  like  any  example  we  have  seen 
in  the  present  State  of  Connecticut.  The  brackets,  instead  of 
being  double -swell  affairs  like  those  in  the  Hollister  house,  or 
plain    bevels    like    those    in   the    Patterson,   have   a    reversed    curve, 


Figure  74— The 

OVEHHANCi. 


'  The  overhang  appears  on  the  front  and  on  each  end.  The  existence  of  it  on  the  back — which 
is  really  a  sign  of  late  date — is  proved  by  the  distance  at  which  the  posts  of  the  lean-to  stand  from 
the  back  wall  of  the  main  house. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  149 

as  the  drawing  shows,  and  the  outer  edges  of  the  girts  wliich 
these  brackets  appear  to  support  are  beautifully  chamfered  with 
a  cyma  reversa  filleted  above  and  below,  and  stopped  with  a  double 
curve.'  This  is  not,  however,  the  real  mediaeval  curved  chamfer- 
stop  into  which  the  mouldings  all  curve  and  die  away.  That 
stop  we  have,  so  far,  seen  but  once  in  New  England,  on  the  edge 
of  the  lintel  over  the  fireplace  in  the  old  Arthur  Fenner  house, 
in  Cranston,   Rhode   Island,  where  it  dated  back  to   1655.' 

These  chamfered  beams,  in  fact,  can  be  only  copies  of  older 
work  which  has  disappeared.  They  seem  isolated  because  the 
forerunners  of  them  have  been  lost  with  the  destruction  of  the 
houses,  or  have  been  covered  up  by  later  boarding.  The  brackets, 
too,  are  rare  because  older  examples  have  been  hewn  away  in 
many  cases  to  make  easier  the  work  of  renewing  the  clapboards, 
or  because  the  houses  have  been  built  out  in  the  lower  story  to 
conceal  the  overhang,  as  was  actually  done  a  few  years  ago  witli 
the   Burnham  house  at   Ipswich. 

While  the  hewn  overhang  has  other  less  elaborate  examples  in 
the  New  Haven  colony — where  we  believe  it  originated,  as  far  as 
the  Connecticut  settlements  are  concerned — these  chamfered  speci- 
mens can  not  be  considered  as  necessarily  earlier  than  those  that 
are  plain.  The  chamfers  occur  at  Ipswich,  in  the  Colony  of  the 
Bay,  in  two  houses,  the  so-called  Saltonstall,  which  is  very  old, 
but  the  date  of  which  is  still  under  investigation,  and  the  so-called 
Cobbett,  which  is  undoubtedly  as  late  as  1701.  The  other  im- 
portant houses  with  overhangs,  in  Ipswich :  the  Howard  house, 
with  no  brackets,  and  the  Norton  house,  with  brackets  of  the 
same    shape    as    those    on    the    Fiske   house  —  though*  there    are    no 

'  Early  Rhode  Island  Houses,    I'lates  g  and   54.      Any  collection  of  photographs  of   French  or 
English  half-timber  work  will  show  the  form. 


150  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

double  ones  on  the  corners  —  are  also  late  examples.  Neither  of 
them  has  the  chamfer.'  We  have,  therefore,  to  abandon  our  first 
thoucrht  that  here  we  meet  an  early  chamfer,  the  work  of  some 
old  craftsman  fresh  from  the  same  kind  of  moulding  in  his  Eng- 
lish home. 

The  final  argument  for  the  late  date  of  the  house  is  the  ex- 
istence of  another  dwelling  of  almost  exactly  the  same  kind,  which 
stands  on  the  same  road  a  little  further  east.  This,  the  Caldwell 
house,  which  we  shall  describe  a  little  later,  has  the  plan  and  all 
the  marks  of  the  third  period  and  can  hardly  be  earlier  than 
about  1740.  It  has  the  overhang,  with  exactly  the  same  form  of 
bracket,  but  without  the  chamfer. 

To  return  briefly  to  the  interior  of  the  Fiske  house.  The 
joists  in  the  second  floor  of  the  lean-to,  which  has  no  plastered 
ceilins:,  run  lengthwise  of  the  kitchen,  and  are  remarkable  for  their 
length  and  for  the  quality  of  the  work  bestowed  upon   them. 

The  roof  is  no  doubt  original.  It  is  framed  with  principal 
rafters  and  purlins  which  carry  the  common  rafters.  Collar  beams, 
as  is  common  in  this  colony,  are  wanting. 

In  the  entry,  which  is  wide,  as  in  all  New  Haven  work,  there 
is  a  very  interesting  stair  with  a  box  string  heavily  moulded,  and 
with  turned  balusters  of  very  good  contour.  The  moulded  rail  will 
be  found  in   Figure   no. 

'  A  theory  of  the  curious  resemblance  between  the  houses  in   Ipswich  and  the  work   in  the  New 
Haven  country  is  propounded,  as  the  old  records  would  put  it,  in  Chapter  IX,  under  Overhang. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


151 


Caldveul  How5 


II. 


The    Caldwell    House. 


This  dwelling,  built  about  1740,  stands  on  the  south  side  of 
the  Boston  road,  at  some  distance  from  the  "Green,"  at  Guilford. 
It  has  the  plan  of  the  later  period,  that  is,  it  is  two  rooms  deep, 
and  it  is  of  two  full  stories. 

The  house  has  a  gable  overhang  at  each  end  and  one  in  the 
second  story  on  the  front  and  on  each  end,  but  not  apparently  at 
the  back  which  is  now  covered  in  part  by  an  unimportant  one- 
story  addition,  and  in  part  by  a  two- story  ell.  The  second  story 
overhangs  have,  at  the  point  where  the  posts  come,  curved  brackets 
precisely  like  those  in  the  Fiske-Wildman  hous5,  but  the  girts  of 
the  second  story  show  no  mouldings. 

There  is  now,  inside  the  house,  a  hall- way  or  entry  which  runs, 
as  in  the  later  pre- Revolutionary  plans,  entirely  through  the  build- 
intr,  with  two  rooms  on  each  side  of  it.     Between  each  of  the  two 


152 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


rooms  of  each  pair  there  now  stands,  as  in  the  plans  of  the  type 
referred  to,  a  brick  chimney.  This  arrangement,  however,  seems 
to  date  only  from  about  1S15.'  Originally  the  house  had  one 
central  chimney,  of  stone,  like  all  the  others  of  its  time,  and  nui^t 
have  much  resembled  the  Mygatt  house,  Wethersfield,  to  which,  in 
dimensions,  it  almost  exactly  corresponds.  In  the  first  story  there 
is   no   summer  in   either  of  the  front   rooms,   though    the   <'irts  show 


ELLADDITI0/M-7> 


S         *"r-^     %-a" A- 


Caldwell  f1°u5E  . 

QviLFORJi  5ECCa/^D5TOE.YPi,A./>I.      r 


Figure  76. 


all  around  the  room,  and  the  ceiling  shows  the  presence  of  a  beam 
in  the  place  of  the  summer — a  beam  very  likely  still  called  by 
that  name.  The  new  chimneys  which  replaced  the  old  stone  stack 
are  built,  as  the  plan  shows,  in  front,  that  is,  north  of  the  girts 
which  bounded  the  hall  and  parlor.  This  story,  as  the  section 
will  show,   is  very  high,  as  high  as  that  in   the   Fiske  house. 


'  Miss  Griswold,  of  Guilford,  gives  us  this  information. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


153 


In  the  second  story,  in  the  Httle  passage  partitioned  off  at  the 
head  of  the  present  stairway,  are  still  to  be  seen  the  two  posts  of 
the  rear  wall,  with  the  chimney  girts  they  carry.  One  of  these 
girts  is  chamfered  on  both  sides.  The  posts  also  are  chamfered, 
and  the  whole  is  well  wrought,  better  than  is  usual  in  this  colony, 
though    the   work   here   surpasses    that   in    Hartford.       The   summer 


Caldwell  Hov.i>r 


GuiLFOKJ^ 


Figure  77. 


exists    in    the    parlor   chamber,    and    in    the    hall    chambefr    as    well, 
though   both   summer  and  girts  are  cased. 

In  the  attic  we  found  no  traces  of  patching  and  repairing  such 
as  would  have  been  necessary  after  the  change  in  the  plan  we 
have  spoken  of.  The  roof  is  therefore  probably  not  original. 
Very    likely    it    dates    from    1815,    the    time    of    the    alterations.     It 


154  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

has  been  strengthened,  since  it  was  built,  by  the  introduction  of 
collar  beams ;  for  the  rafters  at  first  spanned  the  whole  house  and 
carried  vertical  boarding  on  purlins,  with  no  tic  except  at  the 
floor  framing.  The  danger  of  failure,  however,  as  it  proved,  was 
not  in  spreading  —  and  the  result  was  a  justification  of  the  old 
builders'  scheme  in  that  regard — but  in  the  bending  of  the  rafters 
at  the  middle  of  their  length.  Therefore,  as  section  sliows,  the 
joint  is  so  cut  as  to  make  the  new  sticks  act  as  braces  between  the 
weak  points  of  each  pair  of  rafters,  and  not  as  ties.  Nothing  but 
the  form  of  the  joint  and  the  weight  on  the  rafters  holds  these 
pseudo-collars  in  place.  There  are  neither  tenons  nor  pins  in 
them.     Several   new  rafters  have  been  put  in. 

The  chimneys,  since  they  are  near  the  second  summer,  or  girt 
between  parlor  and  kitchen,  and  hence  are  back  of  the  central 
axis  of  the  building,  come  through  the  attic  floor  at  some  distance 
from  the  center  of  the  house  and  consequently  have  to  be  cor- 
belled over,  or  "  carried,"  as  the  section  shows,  that  they  may  rise 
in  the  usual  way  through  the  ridge.  This  we  have  never  seen  in 
old  work.     It  is  a  proof  that  the  chimneys  are  additions. 

There  are  many  houses  of  this  period  in  the  old  jurisdiction  of 
New  Haven.  Guilford  is  full  of  them,  and  they  occur  along  the 
shore  of  the  Sound,  at  least  as  far  as  Saybrook,  though  in  steadily 
decreasing  numbers.  So  numerous  are  they  that  even  had  we  ex- 
amined them  all  it  would  still  have  been  necessary  to  select  exam- 
ples. Those  we  have  discussed  are  typical  of  the  time  we  have 
tried  to  explain. 

The  two-chimney  house  came  shortly  after  this  Caldwell  house. 
There  is  one,  now  deserted,  with  its  central  hall  and  with  an  inch 
overhang  all  round  and  in  the  gables,  facing  the  Sound  on  the 
north  side  of  the  post- road  between  Madison  and  Clinton. 


EARLY     CONNPXTICUT     HOUSES. 


155 


MlLFORD. 


III.      The    Beniamin    House. 


This  house,  the  latest  of  those  whereof  we  shall  have  to  treat, 
stands  in  Milford,  scarce  half  a  mile  north  of  the  main  street,  on 
the   road   which   runs   by   the   railroad  station. 

It  was  built,  tradition  says,  by  Michael  Peck,  which  would 
place  it  as  late  as  1762.  It  may  be  of  that  date.  At  any  rate  it 
is  down  at  the  end  of  the  limit  to  which  the  word  "early"  can 
by  any  means  be  applied. 

It  is  an  original  lean-to  house,  with  no  overhangs.  It  betrays 
its  late  date  partly  by  the  height  of  its  stories,  and  especially  by 
the  fact  which  we  have  already  noted,  that  the  summer  is  wanting, 


156 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


or  at  least  is  concealed  by  the  plastering  in   the  ceiling,  in  the  first 
story  rooms. 

A  beam  there  is  in  each  room,  but  it  is  now  no  deeper  than 
the  joists  which  span  the  distance  between  it  and  the  old  front 
girt.  The  progress  of  improvement  has  driven  out  the  old  deep 
summer  projecting  into  the  room.  With  it  much  of  the  pictur- 
esqueness    of    the    earlier    scheme    has    also    vanished.       The    level 


-  K.ITCHE/H. 


Parlour. 


ii'ik.^ 


ii'-<t 


'7 


Porch  ?  i  j 

i^ JJl 


"-'f  r v'^-'  iii'>"l=J^i*-" 


-sHuTi 


FlGU«E    79. 


plaster  surface  is,  to  the  artistic  eye,  a  poor  substitute  for  the 
ancient  planed  and  chamfered  summer,  with  its  well-wrought,  small- 
sized  joists. 

The  section  will  show  tbe  interesting  method  of  constructing 
the  lean-to  roof,  a  method  precisely  similar  to  that  used  in  the 
Rhode  Island  houses  with  the  original  lean-to.  It  is  an  irrefu- 
table proof  that  this  lean-to  was  built  as  part  of  the  house. 

On   the   first   floor  the    lean-to   is  said    to   have   been   originally 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


157 


one    large    kitchen.     We  are    inclined    to    think,   however,   that    the 
"buttery"  existed  even  at  the  beginning. 

The  chimney  is  of  stone  to  a  point  just  under  the  roof-boards. 
Above  this  it   is  of  brick. 


H0V3n. 


SECTION 


.  .   ^^^^. 


FiGUkfi  80. 


CHAPTER    VIII 


NEW   LONDON. 


E  shall  include  under  this  title  all  the  territoiT  lying  east 
of  the  Connecticut  river,  along  the  shore  of  the  Sound, 
and  stretching  back  to  the  ancient  northern  confine  of 
Norwich.' 

We  are  fortunate  in  having  all  three  periods  represented  by 
fine  examples  —  two  at  New  London,  and  one  near  the  present 
Versailles  station,  in  the  old  territory  of  the  Norwich  settlement. 

As  the  settlement  of  New  London  was  not  made  in  haste,  it 
is  fair  to  assume  that  craftsmen  came  with  the  settlers.  They 
may  have  come  from  Hartford,  or  from  Saybrook,  as  temporary 
residents,  employed  b}'  Winthrop  and  his  companions  to  build  for 
them  their  dwellings ;  or,  what  is  more  likely,  they  may  have  been 
of  the  number  of  the  actual  planters. 

There  must  have  been  houses,  as  in  all  the  settlements,  from 
the  beginning,  and  the  building  of  these  required  skilled  labor. 
There  may  have  been  some  specimens  of  the  "  cellar,"  as  in  the 
other  colonies,  but  we  hear  nothing  of  them  ;  and  from  the  facts 
that  this  plantation  was  made  later  than  the  two  others,  and  that, 
as   it   was   on   the   coast,   communication    with    the   older   settlements 


'  See  the  map  of  early  Connecticut,  on  p.  3. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  159 

was  easy,  it  may  be  assumed  that  the  primitive  "dug-out"  did 
not  have  any  great  vogue. 

A  mason  must  have  been  in  the  town  early,  for  Winthrop 
caused  a  stone  house  to  be  built  for  himself,  probably  with  stone 
from  the  quarry  near  what  is  now  Quaker  Hill,  a  quarry  which 
we  know  from  the  records  was  worked  in  1659,  and  which  must 
have  been  opened  as  soon  as  the  settlement  was  fairly  begun. 
From  the  records  we  infer  the  presence  of  a  mason  in  1661,  for 
such  was  undoubtedly  the  trade  of  Nathaniel  Pryce,  who,  in  that 
year,  was  ordered  to  dig  a  cellar  under  the  minister's  house  "  of 
the  size  of  one  room  and  seven  feet  deep,"  with  a  "stack  of  stone 
chimneys  in  the  midst."  It  is  curious  to  note  the  use  of  the 
word  chimneys  where  we  should  speak  of  "flues,"  an  instance  of 
which  occurred,  it  will    be   remembered,  in   Talcott's  memorandum.' 

The  recorded  evidence  as  to  carpenters  and  their  work  begins 
with  the  advent  of  John  Elderkin,  of  that  craft,  in  165 1.  He 
came  to  New  England  in  1637,  and  had  lived  at  Lynn,  at  Dedham, 
and  perhaps  at  Providence,  though  no  record  of  him  appears  at 
this  last  settlement.-  He  took,  in  this  same  year,  a  contract  to 
build  a  meeting-house  and  to  clapboard  it  for  /,S.  The  fact  that 
houses  were  built  as  soon  as  the  place  was  settled  is  proved  by 
another  entrj'  in  the  records  which  speaks  of  a  lean-to  addition. 
Happily  we  know  something  of  what  the  dwellings  were  from  the 
rough  specification  given  in  1666  for  the  minister's  house  already 
mentioned.  "  The  dimentions,"  says  the  old  town  record,  "  are 
to    be    36    foote    in    length    and    25    in    breadth    and    thirteen   foote 


'  See  p.  13  of  this  book. 

■Miss  F.   M.  Caulkins  History  of  A'fiv  London,  pp.   15S-9.       Elderkin  died  at  Xorwicti,    Tune 
23,  16S7.     Ibid.     Compare  also  the  same  authot"s  History  of  iVorxoich,  p    117. 


inn  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

stud  betwixt  yc  joynts  with  a  stack  of  stone  chimneys  in  the 
midst.     The  house  to  be  a  girt  house.'  " 

This  last  expression  means  that  the  house  was  to  have  no 
studs  and  was  to  be  boarded  vertically,  and  the  use  of  such  words 
shows  that  this  was  an  exception,  while  the  use  of  studs  was  the 
rule.  This  was  to  have  been  apparently  a  two-story  building.  It 
is  of  extraordinary  width  for  that  early  date,  and  it  certainly  looks 
as  if  the  town  fathers,  who  voted  to  spend  ^loo  on  the  building 
beside  paying  for  the  mason  work,  meant  to  have  a  lean-to  house. 

The  original  type  of  house,  however,  seems  to  have  been  a 
one  or  two-room  structure  to  which  the  lean-to  was  added  later. 
Of  course  we  have  very  few  examples  to  which  we  can  appeal, 
because  of  the  burnins;  of  New  London  bv  Arnold;  but  the  ex- 
press  mention  of  the  lean-to  as  an  addition,  the  late  date  of  the 
enactment  about  the  minister's  house,  and  the  lateness  of  all  houses 
now  standing  with  lean-to  roofs,  all  go  to  strengthen  the  state- 
ment. 

In  the  second  period,  and,  indeed,  at  the  end  of  the  first,  as 
the  vote  about  the  parsonage  shows,  the  wider  form  of  house  is 
used  with  one  or  more  narrow  rooms,  one  of  which  is  the  kitchen, 
at  the  rear  of  the  main  apartments ;  and  these  rooms,  at  least  at 
first,  take  the  form  of  the  lean-to. 

In  the  third  period,  the  wide  house  becomes  the  type  for  the 
plan,  while  in  elevation  the  type  is  either  a  lean-to  or  two  full 
stories,  as  in  the  other  settlements.  The  whole  dwelling,  also,  is 
larger. 

Brick  comes  into  use  for  parts  of  the  chimney,  and  sometimes 

'  New  London  records,  quoted  by  Miss  Caulkins,  I/isloi\\  pp.  139-40. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  161 

for  the  whole  at  some  time  after  1680.'  The  cheapness  of  stone 
in  the  old  Norwich  territory  caused  the  material  to  be  used  till 
very  recent  times.  In  this  Norwich  is  like  the  "  South  County " 
of  Rhode  Island,  which,  indeed,  it  strongly  resembles  in  other 
ways,  and  like   Guilford   in  the   New   Haven  jurisdiction. 

It  is  worthy  of  remark  that,  in  the  later  development  of  the 
plan,  we  find  in  New  London  large  houses  with  a  chimney  at 
each  end,  and,  both  in  that  city  and  in  Norwich,  hip- roofed  houses 
with  a  chimney  in  the  outer  wall  in  each  of  the  four  rooms  which 
they  contain. 

Let  us  now  turn  to  the  examples.  Of  these  we  shall  consider 
but  three :  ~ 

I.      The   Hempstead    House,   New   London,  West    End,    1647, 

Ea.st    End,    1678. 

II.      The    Cady    House,   Putnam,   c.    17 14. 
III.      The    Kinsman    House,    Lisbon,  near    Versailles,   c.   1745. 


'"Clay  pits"  on  the  Quinnebaug  river  are  mentioned  in  16S7.  Miss  Caulkins'  History  of 
Norwich,  p.  166. 

'  Tlie  Coit-Belden  house,  on  Main  street,  at  the  foot  of  FederaL  is  said  to  be  very  old.  We 
have  not  vet  examined  it. 


102 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


HEnP5TEAD  HOUJE 


I.      The    Hempstead    House. 


This  dwelling,  one  of  the  most  interesting  in  all  New  Eng- 
land, stands  with  its  back  to  Hempstead  court,  perhaps  half  a 
mile  from  the  waterside,  and  not  far  from  State  street,  in  the  city 
of  New  London.  It  is  of  unusual  length,  and  consists  of  two 
parts,  one  on  each  side  of  the  central  chimney,  which  is  of  stone 
to  a  point  above  the  third  floor,  though  the  top  is  of  brick.  One 
of  these  parts,  the  western,  is  the  older,  and  was  built  by  Robert 
Hempstead,  one  of  the  original  settlers,  in  1647.  The  eastern 
half  was  built  by  this  man's  son  in  167S.  The  lean-to,  as  it  now 
stands,  is  partly  a  restoration.      It  is  certainly  a  late  addition. 

The  evidence  for  these  dates  is  very  strong.  We  know  from 
the  Hempstead  diary  that  the  house  had  already  been  standing 
65  years  in  1743.  That  is  decisive  for  the  date  1678.  Now,  on 
examining  the  house  it  is  very  easy  to  see  that  the  two  parts  of 
it  are   not  of  the  same   date,   and   that  the   western   half    is   by   far 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


163 


the  older  of  the  two.  No  one  who  examines  the  building  with 
any  care  can  doubt  this  statement,  which  will  ajjpear  more  clearly 
as  we  describe  the  house  in  detail.  The  traditional  date,  then, 
of  1647  is,  for  the  western  end  of  the  house,  certainly  correct. 

The  western  part,  shown  in  black  on  the  plan,  extended  origi- 
nally to  the  point  A,  which  was  just  east  of  the  original  chim- 
ney or  of  the  chimney  in  its  original  form.  Beyond  that  point 
we  find  the  second  floor  of  the  eastern  end  four  inches  higher 
than    that    of    the    older    part,   and    the    plate,   too,   at   least    on    the 


HmP^TEADHo/iEwLo/iDo/)       Hp't^toev H- 


frontage,  at  a  higher  level.  The  original  building  was,  then,  an 
end-chimney  house,  though  the  chimney  was  probably  not  on  the 
outside  of  the  wall. 

The  summer  and  two  posts  —  the  others  are  buried  in  the  thick 
walls  —  are  shown  in  the  old  hall  in  the  western  first  story,  and 
we  meet  once  more  that  rare  and  ancient  feature,  the  sill  above 
the  joists,  projecting  into  the  room.  Another  peculiarity  is  the 
running  of  the  summer  across  the  house,  with  a  post  under  each 
end,  as  in  the  Roger  Williams  house  in  Salem,  an  arrangement 
repeated   in    the   second   story.     The    chamfer  of   this   summer  is    a 


164 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


filleted  quarter- round,  and  the  slop  is  unique.  The  southern  and 
western  walls  are  thickened  and  are  filled  with  brick  and  eel-grass. 
The  north  wall,  once  the  outside  wall  of  the  house,  was  treated 
in  the  same  manner.  The  post  under  the  summer  in  that  wall 
is  pinned   into  the  sill. 

The    roof    of    this    house,    over    the    western    end,    is    original. 
When   the   eastern   part   was   added    the   cornice   was   raised   on    the 


HEAP.5TEAD 

HouJfc". 

hew  Lo/jC)o« 


Figure   8j 

front,  as  the  perspective  shows.  The  rafter  in  the  western  gable 
was  left  in  its  old  place  and  a  new  rafter  put  in  above  it.  The 
other  rafters  were  treated  differently.  The  collar  beams  were  pulled 
out  of  their  mortises  in  the  front  rafters  and  these  were  then 
spread,  turning  on  the  pins  at  their  tops,  till  they  reached  the 
span   required    to   make   them    align   with   the   rafters   of    the   newer 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  165 

roof.  The  collars  were  then  brouo;ht  against  the  rafters  and  fas- 
tened  to  them  considerably  below  these  old  mortises  which,  though 
filled  up,  may  still  be  seen.  On  each  face  of  the  older  roof  there 
still  remains  the  framing  for  a  dormer  window.  On  the  rear  face 
the  rafter  over  the  middle  of  the  dormer-space  stops,  as  it  origi- 
nally did,  on  a  header  or  cross-beam  (see  the  section),  while  on 
the  front  face  the  space  below  the  header  was  filled,  by  those 
who  altered  the  roof,  with  a  continuation  of  the  rafter  above. 

The  cellar  is  under  the  western  end  only.  It  is  of  good 
masonry,  laid  in  lime  mortar.  The  joists  of  the  first  floor,  which 
are  heavy  and  regular,  are  built  into  the  wall,  and  the  sill  runs 
over  them  on  the  top  of  the  masonry.  The  framing  for  a  cellar 
window  exists,  and  traces  of  the  window -opening  remain  in  the 
south  wall.  The  entrance  from  out  of  doors  is  at  the  south  of 
the  west  end.  Under  the  porch  or  entry  the  framing  is  lighter. 
Perhaps  a  trap-door  originally  existed  there.  One  of  the  most  note- 
worthy characteristics  of  this  cellar  is  the  use  of  quarried  stone 
in  the  walls  of  it.  Several  of  the  stones  show  drill-marks  and 
roughly  split  surfaces.  These  are  the  only  instances  of  quarry 
marks  which  we  have  seen. 

Whether  or  not  the  staircase  is  as  old  as  either  part  of  the 
house  it  is  hard  to  say.  The  cage  in  which  it  stands  is  no  doubt 
contemporary,  at  least,  with  the  later  end,  and  probably  with  the 
earlier,  for  it  stronglv  resembles  that  in  the  Whitman  house. 

The  eastern  or  newer  end  of  the  house  presents  one  peculiarity 
—  two  parallel  summers  in  the  parlor  where  we  should  expect  one. 
Two  summers  exist  in  the  Perkins  or  Warner  house,  Warwick, 
R.  I.,  and  in  the  Roger  Williams  house,  Salem,  but  in  these  cases 
they    ran    across    the    building    like    that    in    the    old    part    of    this 


IGG  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

Hempstead  house,  wliilc  these  run  as  we  should  expect  to  find 
the  one  summer  running,  tliat  is,  parallel  with  the  front  of  the 
building. 

In  one  corner  of  the  chamber  of  this  eastern  end  a  space  is 
partitioned  off,  and  here  we  can  sec,  bare  of  plaster,  one  of  the 
two  second-story  summers;  the  other  is  covered,  like  the  posts 
and  outside  studding,  with  a  later  finish  of  lath  and  plaster.  The 
brace  in  the  corner  goes  from  the  post  to  the  girt,  as  in  the 
Gleason  house,  and  not  from  the  post  to  the  plate. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


167 


II.      The    Cady    House. 

This  house  stood  near  the  city  of  Putnam  till  1S9S.  It  was 
built  about  17 14'  by  Justice  Joseph  Cady.  A  half-tone  of  it, 
given  in  the  Connecticut  Quarterly^  shows  that  it  had  a  lean-to, 
though  whether  this  was  original  or  not  we  can  not  say,  as  we 
did  not  examine  the  building.  A  gable  overhang  also  appears  in 
the  picture,  with   the  usual  projecting  plate. 

We  give  a  view  of  the  ruins  and  a  plan  based  upon  measure- 
ments taken  by  Mr.  E.  \V.   Husband.      Such  a  ruin  is  always  more 


'Miss  Ellen   D.   I.arned,    "Three  Killingly  Boys,"   in  tlie   Coiiiiec/iciit  Quarterly,  vol.   HI.   No. 
2   p.  221. 


168 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


important  than  it  at  first   might  seem,  for  it  gives   an   opportunity 
to    study   the    construction    of    the    chimney   which    in    this    case    is 

quite  interesting.  In  our  plan  in 
Figure  86  it  will  be  seen  that  the 
oven,  in  a  house  even  as  late  as 
this,  is  an  addition.  In  the  section 
the  method  of  turning  all  the  flues 
into  one  is  noteworthy,  as  well  as 
the  management  of  the  first-story 
flue  under  the  hearth  in  the  sec- 
ond story,  and  the  way  in  which 
that  hearth  is  supported. 
This  turning  of  all  the  flues  into  one  was  probably  the  most 
common  fashion  of  chimney  building.  It  certainly  was  the  cheap- 
est. Whether  it  was  always  used  or  not,  it  is  difficult  to  say.  We 
think  that  separate  flues  may  be  found  in  stone  work  in  Con- 
necticut as  in  Rhode  Island.  In  brick  chimneys  they  certainly 
can  be  seen  in  houses  as  early  as  this  or  earlier,  as  in  the  Shel- 
don  Woodbridge  house. 


Sketch    Pla/s  . 
Figure  8^.— The  Cauy  House. 


^EaiCM  THBO'  Cm/l/lEY. 


Figure  86— The  Cady  House. 


EARI.V     CONXECTICIT     HOUSES.  160 


III.      The    Kinsman    House. 

This  house,  abandoned  and  fast  going  to  ruin,  stands  north  of 
the  New  England  railroad  track,  near  V^ersaiiJes  station,  about  six 
miles  from  Norwich  on  the  road  from  Canterbury  to  Versailles. 
It  was  probably  built  about  1745-50.  It  is  a  house  of  the 
regular  plan  so  familiar  in  the  Connecticut  colony  in  the  third 
period,  with  lengthwise  summers  in  the  first  stor}',  a  large  porch 
and  wide  stairway,  and  a  kitchen  with  pantr)'  or  chamber  at  the 
rear.  In  the  second  story  the  summer  runs  across  the  house  to 
form  a  tie  for  the  roof.  The  building  is  a  specimen  of  the  "girt 
house "  referred  to  in  the  New  Lond6n  records.  It  is  boarded 
vertically  on  the  outside,  with  studs  only  at  the  windows.'  These 
windows  were  probably  double,  or  wide  in  proportion  to  their 
height,  like  those  in  the  Whitman  house,  for  the  studs  came  right 
for  the  later  colonial  windows,  though  they  may  have  been  put 
in  for  these.  Instead  of  wainscot  carried  horizontally  around  the 
walls,  as  in  the  Whitman  house,  the  building  has  a  late  coat  of 
plaster  over  a  system  of  vertical  inside  boarding,  which  is  two 
and  a  half  inches,  the  thickness  of  the  window  studs,  away  from 
the  outer  boarding.  This  exists  in  part  of  the  north  wall  of  the 
house,  showing  that  it  was  one  of  the  form  outlined  in  black  on 
the  plan  in   Figure  87. 

In  the  first  story  some  of  the  beams  over  the  kitchen  and  the 

'  This  vertieal  boarding,  the  rule  in  Rhode  Island,  and  common  east  of  that  colony,  in  Ply- 
mouth, is  rare  iii  Connecticut,  It  occurs  as  far  west  as  Saybrook,  but,  so  far  as  we  can  find,  no 
further,  except  in  barns.  Eastern  Connecticut  and  Narragansett,  in  Rhode  Island,  are  much  alike 
architecturally. 


nn 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


room  at  the  side  thereof  are  framed  into  the  girts  at  the  side  of 
the  front  rooms.  The  others  are  framed  into  the  posts  on.  the 
north  line  of  the  parlor  and  hall  —  the  parlor  is  here  the  east 
room  —  to  form  a  tie  across  the  house.  In  the  second  story  the 
beams  are  spliced   to  the  ends  of  the  summers  and  of  the  girts. 

The  roof  is  boarded  vertically  on  purlins  carried  by  the  rafters. 
Though   common    in    New    Haven,   as    we    saw,   this    is    rather    rare 

Addition 

-H  -:::::: k. 


'Vr^me      4-5-5') 


Figure  87.— Kinsman  Housf.  First  Story 

SO    far    east    as    this.      The    chimney    is    stone    throughout,    but    the 
top  shows  no  panelling  or  pilasters. 

At  the  rear  of  the  house  is  an  addition  a  story -and -a -half 
high,  with  small  windows  under  the  eaves,  and  a  summer  in  the 
second  floor.  It  has  an  end  chimney  of  stone,  which,  like  the 
rest  of  the  addition,  is  in  ruins.  It  was  never  on  the  outside  at 
the  upper  part,  as  the  mortise  for  the  girt  outside  of   it  still  exists 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


171 


in  one  of  the  corner  posts.  It  may,  like  one  stone  chimney  in 
old  Saybrook,  and  one  brick  example  in  Guilford,  have  shown  on 
the  outside  below  that  oirt. 

The  Avay  in  which  the  ends  of  the  summer  in  the  garret  floor 
of  the  main  house  are  cut  over  the  plate  and  carry  the  cornice  like 
an   overhang,  as  shown  in   Figure   io6,  is  very  interesting. 

The  parlor  is  now  panelled  on  the  fireplace  end  in  much  the 
same  manner  as  in  the   Dorus   Barnard  house.     On  the  front  of  the 


Figure  88.— Kinsman   House.  Second  Story. 


house  the  wall  is  lined  with  panelling  set  out  from  the  old  wall 
so  as  to  form  cupboards,  at  the  back  of  which,  in  grooves  on  the 
chair  rail  and  in  a  grooved  piece  fastened  to  the  girt  above,  moved 
S'liding  shutters  of  panelled  wood.  This  whole  arrangement  dates 
probably  from  about  17S0.  On  this  front  wall,  concealed  by  the 
newer  panelling,  is  the  old  vertical  wainscot  of  the  room,  of 
matched  boards  in  sections,  resembling  those  in  the  Whitman 
house,  and   stopping  against  a   wide  oak  "  ground  "   or  strip,  above 


IT'-'  K.\KI.^■     fONNKCTICUi'     HOUSKS. 

wliicli  is  plaster.  This  wainscot  occurs  in  tlie  passage  beiiind  the 
parlor.  The  ground  occurs  without  the  wainscot  in  the  hall  on 
the  north  side.  This  wainscot  is  later  than  the  house,  as  the 
fact  that  the  chimney  is  laid  in  clay  nii.xed  with  hay  instead  of 
in  lime  mortar  —  for  the  lime  in  the  stone-work  is  of  later  patch- 
ing—  is  conclusive  proof  that  there  was  no  plaster  in  the  original 
house. 


CHAPTER    IX 


CONSTRUCTION. 


ET  us  now  consider  in  detail  the  construction  of  the 
various  houses  which  we  have  discussed  in  the  preced- 
ing chapters.  To  do  this  we  must  first  study  the  mate- 
rials of  the  buildings,  then  the  details  which  we  have  till  now 
looked  at  only  in  their  relation  to  the  whole  structure  of  which 
they  formed  parts,  and  finally  the  methods  of  workmanship  and 
the  tools  of  the  workmen.  We  shall  not  divide  the  chapter  just 
in  this  way,  for  often  all  these  subjects  can  be  disposed  of  under 
one  heading;  but  we  shall,  aside  from  the  direct  study  of  materials, 
endeavor  to  treat  each  part  of  the  construction  under  the  three- 
fold aspect  of  the  material  of  which  it  is  composed,  its  form  and 
duty   in   the  building,  and   the  tools   used  in   working  it. 

I.      Stone- WORK   and   Brick -work. 


Stone.  There  are  two  kinds  of  stone  to  be  found  in  the  early 
houses  of  Connecticut:  field  stone  and  quarried  stone.  The  for- 
mer is  used  mostly  in  the  hilly  country,  the  latter  in  the  river 
vallevs.  The  field  stone  are  mainlv  bowlders  or  fragment  of  bowl- 
ders  from  the  glacial  drift.  They  are  mostly  of  granite,  though 
other   rocks,  trap,  greenstone,  sandstone,  gneiss,  occur  among  them. 


174  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

They  occur  also  as  a  kind  of  flat  stone,  in  some  places,  Wethers- 
field  among  them,  along  the  shore  of  the  Connecticut  river,  as 
they  occur  at  some  points  along  the  Sound.  The  bowlders  can 
be  broken  up  in  one  way  or  another  with  the  mason's  hammer, 
but  the  settlers  seem  not  to  have  done  this,  but  to  have  used  the 
field  stones  as   they  picked   them   up. 

Quarrying  began  earl)-  in  Hartford.  The  red  sandstone  of 
the  district  crops  out  in  the  bed  and  on  the  banks  of  the  Little 
River,  and  there  we  find  a  cjuarry  in  the  "stone  pits,"  in  reference 
to  which   there  are  several   town   orders. 

In  September,  1639,  it  was  "orderd  that  non  shall  dig  ston 
on  the  falles  by  goodman  lords."  '  If  the  location  of  Goodman 
Lord's  lot  on  Porter's  map  is  correct,  this  primitive  quarry  was  on 
the  north  bank  of  the  Little  River,  a  short  distance  west  of  the 
Main  street  bridge.  The  digging  for  stone  there,  as  the  old  re- 
corder calls  quarrying,  had  evidently  been  going  on  long  enougli 
to  have  become  a  nuisance,  for  there  is,  under  the  date  of  1635, 
and  perhaps  copied  from  some  older  papers  of  that  date,  a  frag- 
ment of  an  order  which  seems  to  be  of  the  same  purport  as  this.- 

One  order  or  two  did  not  stop  the  trouble,  and  in  [anuary, 
1639-40,  we  find  that  the  quarrying  had  been  carried  so  far 
that  the  highvvavs  were  in  danfier.  and  an  order  was  issued  at  the 
town -meeting  requiring  those  whose  digging  had  injured  the  road 
to  fill  up  their  pits  within  "three  Mounthes  after  this  tyme  If  they 
haue  Ceassed  digging  or  w""in  three  mounthes  after  they  haue 
Ceassed,"  under  penalty  of  a  fine.'' 


'Conn.  Historical  Society,  Collcclions,  vol.  VI.  p.  7. 
'-  Iliid,  p.  2. 
^  Jbiii.  p.  13. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  17-5 

Even  this  did  not  bring  tlic  practice  into  order.  On  May  16, 
1642,  it  was  recorded:  "It  is  ordered  that  noone  shall  dige  any 
stons  at  the  riueret  without  order  from  the  townsmen."  '  And  yet 
again  the  persistent  masons  were  met  by  three  enactments  passed 
on  November  iS,  1644.  Says  the  record:  "it  is  ordered  that  if 
any  man  shall  haue  liberty  to  dig  stons  by  the  riuer  he  shall  haue 
noe  liberty  to  dig  any   more  stons  six   weeks  after  the  grantt." 

"it  is  ordered  that  the  pitts  that  are  alredy  opend  thos  that 
haue  mad  them  shall  haue  noe  liberty  to  dig  any  longer  then  six 
weeks  after  the  makin  of  this  order:  the  former  orders  of  filing 
of  the  pitts  and  of  saufing  the  town  from  damag  stand  still  in 
forse." 

"if  any  man  shall  pase  the  time  alowd  him  to  dig  stons  aboue 
written  he  shall  forfitt  to  the  town  for  any  such  defallt  5":  fiue 
shilings."^ 

Whether  this  last  legislation  was  effectual  we  can  not  discover, 
but  nothing  more  appears  on  the  record  about  the  stone  pits  till 
December  23,  1696,  when  permission  was  given  to  "set  up  a  saw 
mill  upon  the  mill    Riuer  about  the  Stone  pits."^ 

In  Windsor,  William  Hayden,  who  was  apparently  a  mason, 
had  a  stone  quarry  as  early  as  1644.  On  February  16,  1651-2, 
it  was  "granted  by  the  Town  that  William  Hayden  shall  have 
leave  to  dig  for  a  quarry  of  stone  on  the  Common  Hill  and  shall 
have  it  to  his  own  property  for  seven  years,  and  no  man  shall 
molest  by  digging  within  a  rod  of  his  pit.  His  limits  are  within 
3   rods  square."  ■" 


'  /iiW,  p.  63. 

'  //'/(/,  pp.  71-2. 

'•'■  l/>iJ,  p.  247. 

■■Stiles,  History  of  Aiiiiciit    IVindsor,  vol.  1,  p.  144. 


i((i  EARLV  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

In  Middlctown  the  stone  now  so  well  known  was  probably 
worked  from  the  first  settlement,  if,  indeed,  the  ledge  did  not  form 
the  principal  attraction  for  the  first  inhabitants. 

At  a  town -meeting  at  Middletown,  in  1665,  "it  was  resolved 
that  no  man  should  dig  or  raise  stones  at  the  rocks  on  the  east 
side  of  the  river  but  an  inhabitant  of  Middletown,  and  that  twelve 
pence  should  be  paid  to  the  town  for  ever\'  tun  (sic)  of  stones 
taken."'  Field  goes  on  to  sa\-,  "as  early  as  this  they  were  trans- 
ported in  vessels  to  other  places." 

The  truth  of  this  statement  is  attested  by  the  presence  in  the 
burial  ground  of  the  Greene  family  in  Old  Warwick,  Rhode  Island, 
of  a  stone  evidently  from  this  quarry,  with  the  date  1668  cut 
upon  it,  and  an  inscription  in  lettering  undoubtedly  of  that  date 
or  shortly  after  it.'-'  The  monument  to  Lady  Fenwick  also  is  said 
to  be  of  this  stone,  cut  by  Matthew  Griswold,  of  Lyme,  who,  no 
doubt,  carved  the  final  word  over  the  remains  of  man\'  of  the 
colony's  dead.'^ 

Son\e  of  the  stones  in  the  Center  Church  yard  in  Hartford  are 
from  Middletown,  though  many  of  the  old  ones,  from  their  ex- 
tremely red  color,  seem  to  belong  to  the  deposit  of  the  "stone 
pits. 

Beyond  stone  for  monuments,  however,  there  was  little  export- 
ing from   the  quarries,  except  as  the  material   could   be  carried    up 


'  David   1).  I'ield,  Sfcitisliail  Aici^iiii/  of  the   Couiily  of  Middlesex  in   Coiinecticiit,  1819,  p.  58. 

'Almost  all   17th  century  lettering  in   Rhode   Island  and  Connecticut  is  in  capitals. 

■'Miss  Caulkins,  History  of  A'eiv  London,  pp.  1 73-4. 
It  seems  strange  that  no  one  has  as  yet  attempted  a  scientific  study  of  the  tombstones  of 
colonial  times;  yet  in  that  humble  subject  will  be  found  the  beginnings  of  stone  carving,  if  not  of 
sculpture,  in  America.  Enough  has  been  said  about  the  epitaphs ;  let  some  student  seriously  clas- 
sify the  motives  of  the  decoration,  the  styles  of  lettering — many  of  them  very  beautiful — with  the 
dates  of  each,  the  methods  of  work,  and  the  tools,  and  finally  the  men  who  did  the  conscientious, 
if  sometimes  uncouth,  carving  of  the  time. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  I  (  I 

and  clown  the  river.  Portland  stone,  as  a  buildine:  material,  does 
not  occur  in    Rhode   Island,  at  least,   till    1730. 

The  quarried  sandstone,  as  we  find  it  in  the  chimneys  and 
cellar  walls  of  the  earliest  buildings  in  the  Connecticut  colony,  is 
of  rubble  or  roughh'  split  work.  Squared  work  with  fair  quarry- 
face  surface  appears  only  in  the  topping- out  of  chimneys,  and  the 
only  instances  of  this  are  the  Whitman  hou.se,  Farmington,  and 
the  quaint  Root  house  in  Plainville.  The  Clark  house.  Farming- 
ton,   was  another  instance  like   the  Whitman. 

Later,  or  at  any  rate  at  the  end  of  the  third  period,  as  in  the 
Webb  house,  the  stone  was  squared  and  well  wrought,  with  smooth 
surfaces  and  rusticated  joints. 

We  have  met  with  no  mention  of  quarries  at  New  Haven 
proper.  Quarrying,  however,  if  we  can  trust  tradition,  must  have 
begun  very  early  in  that  colony.  The  stone  of  which  the  Whit- 
field house  is  built  is  said  to  have  been  a  kind  of  granite,  taken 
from  a  ledge  east  of  the  site.'  The  later  chimneys  in  Guilford 
are,  many  of  them,  built  of  gneiss  or  stratified  granite,  well-squared 
and  laid  up  like  brick  on  edge,  so  that  the  wall  of  the  flue  is 
apparently  very  thin. 

In  New  London  quarrying  began  with  the  settlement,  for  Win- 
throp  built  a  stone  house  in  1648.  A  little  later,  in  1652,  we  find 
a  house  lot  granted  to  John  Stoddard,  at  F"o.\en's  Hill,  with  the 
reservation:  "  highwaies  to  be  allowed  to  common  land  and  to 
fetch  stones."-  "A  highway  to  the  Quarry,"  Miss  Caulkins  says, 
was    reser\'ed    in    other   grants    near    this    granite    ledge,    which   she 


1  R.  D.  Smith.  History  of  Guilford. 

'Miss   Caulkins,    New   London,   p.    S4.      There   were    two  stone   houses  at    New   London   beside 
Winthrop's.     Ibid. 


178  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

places  a  mile  from  the  town,  a  location  which  would  bring  it  into 
the  neighborhood  of  Quaker  Hill. 

A  clear  proof  that  the  stone  at  "  Foxen's  hill  "  was  quarried 
and  not  picked  up  from  the  surface  is  found  in  the  tool -marks  of 
which  we  have  already  spoken,  which  are  found  on  the  stone  in 
the  cellar  of  the  Hempstead  house.  These  date  from  at  least 
1647.' 

Gneiss  is  a  common  material  in  the  old  territory  of  Norwich, 
or  at  least  a  part  of  it,  and  there  we  find,  as  in  the  Kinsman 
house  and  several  others  in  that  region,  the  same  squared  stone 
chimneys  which  we  meet  in  Guilford,  and  in  South  County  in 
Rhode  Island.  Some  very  large  stones  are  used,  also,  especially 
over  the  fireplace  openings,  where  earlier  or  less  favored  builders 
used  beams  of  wood.  Even  the  rough  work  of  some  of  the  chim- 
neys is  laid  in  roughly  squared  blocks  of  this  stone,  which  splits 
with  great  ease  and  regularity.  The  whole  of  extreme  eastern 
Connecticut,  as  far  as  we  have  seen  it,  is  a  stone-using  country 
till  very  late,  even  after  brick  were  manufactured  there. 

Quarrying,  or  "digging,"  for  stone  requires  tools  beside  the  axe 
or  hammer,  namely,  the  drill  and  the  wedge.  These  we  do  not 
find  in  the  inventories.  The  estate  of  Governor  Eaton  contained 
two  stone -axes,''  but  even  he  had,  at  least  when  he  died,  no  drills 
or  wedges,  though  we  might  suppose  he  could  have  worked  the 
ledges  at  his  Stony  River  farm. 

Brick.  One  of  the  earliest  entries  in  the  town  records  of  Hart- 
ford is  an  order  "  that  Thomas  Scott  shall  keep  in  good   Repayre 


'  Mary  Hempstead,  eldest  child  of  Robert,   was  born  March  26.  1647.     Ibiil,  pp.  72,  272. 
-See  Appendix  I. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES.  179 

the   bridg  over  the  bri[ck  kill]   swam  brooke "'     This 

is  under  the   date   of    1635,  though    the   record   was   really   made   in 
163S. 

Again,  in  September,  1639,  we  find  the  record:  "It  is  orderd 
that  Jo  Gening  shall  sweepe  all  the  Chimnes  &  haue  6''  for  brick 
&  3"  for  Clay."-' 

For  forty-six  years  after  this  entry  the  records  are  silent  on 
the  subject.  Then,  "at  a  town  meeting  desember  24  16S5:"  — 
"  The  Town  Granted  Even  Davy  liberty  to  make  a  Brick  yarde 
In  the  comon  Highway  to  improue  it  in  makeing  of  Brick  as  he 
shall  have  occasion  by  or  neer  .Steven  Hopkins  lot  he  mayntain- 
ing  a  Good  High  way  up  the  Hill  wher  he  makes  brick  .... 
to  haue  &  to  hold  the  same  so  long  as  he  shall  improue  it  in 
making  of  brick  &  no  longer."" 

Whether  Davy  gave  up  the  grant,  or  whether  it  lapsed  at  his 
death,  the  town,  December  29,  1702,  "gave  libertv  to  Wilterton 
Merrill,  James  Easton  &  Richard  Seamor  to  make  brick  for  this 
year  in  the  highway  at  the  place  called  y''  brick  yard"^  .... 
This  last  expression  makes  it  probable  that,  whatever  the  fate  of 
Davy,  the  industry  had  lived,  and  that  these  men  were  to  work 
on  the  same  spot  where  their  predecessors  had  labored. 

It  appears,  then,  that  brick  were  made  very  early  in  Hartford, 
probably  at  the  instance  of  the  wealthier  settlers.  The  working 
of  the  clay  deposits  may  have  gone  on  in  an  intermittent  fashion 
through  the  first  period,  but  the  grant  to  Davy,  in  16S5,  marks 
the  serious  introduction   of  the   material.     There   is   no   brick -work 


'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  CelUctions,  VI,  p.  2. 

•  The  same,  p.  7. 
"The  same,  pp.  217-1S. 

*  The  same,  p.  266. 


180  EARLY     CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 

older  than  that  date  now  existing  in  the  river  towns  around  Hart- 
ford. In  Hartford  itself  only  the  chiinneys  of  the  two  Barnard 
houses  might  claim  greater  antiquity,  or  even  as  great,  and  these 
are  almost  certainly  later  additions. 

In  New  Haven  we  find  brick  mentioned  at  the  very  outset,  as 
in  Hartford.  In  the  court  order  of  June  ii,  1640,  the  New  Haven 
Statute  of  Laborers,  as  we  might  call  it,  "  bricklayers  .... 
ma'  workcmen  "  were  directed  not  to  take  above  2s  6d.  a  day  for 
twelve  hours  or  at  least  ten,  nor  above  2s.  in  winter  for  at  least 
eight  hours.' 

On  January  2,  1644,  an  order  was  issued  about  "the  brick 
kilns  in  the  plains,"^  and  on  June  16,  1645,  it  was  noted  that 
"  John  Benham  now  makes  bricks  w'hin  the  compass  of  Mr. 
Eaton's  farme."  ■' 

Richard   Beach,  before   the   court,    December  8,    1645,  "engaged 
his    house,    barn,   cellar,   and    well,    valued    at    ^40    with    the    seven 
acres   of    land   on    which    it   stands,    the   house   and    barn   and   cellar 
being  built  with  brick  and  stone."'' 

On  February  23,  1645,  the  court  "Ordered  that  the  clay-pits 
on  the  north  side  of  the  town  ....  be  reserved  and  kept 
as  a  common."'' 

Again,  the  court,  on  March  16,  1646,  granted  that  "Edward 
Shipfield  might  have  liberty  to  make  bricks  in  the  plains  under 
the  west  rock." '' 

With    all    this    brick    manufactured    on    the.  spot   the   fathers    of 


'  New  Haven   Colonial  Records,  vol.  I,  p.  36. 

'  The  same,  p.  151. 

'  The  same,  p.  167. 

■•  The  same,  p.  184. 

'  The  same,  p.  2og. 

'  The  same,  p.  226. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  181 

New  Haven  did  some  importing — tlie  only  instance  we  know  in 
New  England,  except  the  ten  thousand  brick  recorded  as  to  be 
shipped  to  Massachusetts  Bay  in  162S.  Mr.  Atwater  records  the 
finding  of  the  word  "  London  "  stamped  on  the  brick  which  were 
taken  out  while  a  very  old  house  in  New  Haven,  the  Atwater 
mansion,  was  being  torn  down.'  1  hese  brick  ma}'  have  come  with 
the  lime  in  the  ships  which  brought  the  Guilford  and  Southold 
people." 

The  sizes  of  some  of  these  old  brick  may  be  of  interest.  Those 
in  the  chimney  of  the  Dorus  Barnard  house,  Hartford,  are  4  by 
8'A  inches,  and  2='i  inches  thick.  The  older  brick  are  the  larger, 
as  a  rule.  That  is.  they  were  made  very  large,  then  smaller,  until 
in  our  own  day  they  are  large  again.  Two  sizes  did  e.xist  together 
in  Providence  in  1715.  The  brick  in  the  Sheldon  house  are  2/i 
to  2/2  inches  thick,  3'8  to  4  inches  wide,  and  S  inches  long.  Ac- 
cording to  Nevill,  a  standard  brick  in  England  in  16S5  was  ^-H  by 
SH,  and  2/i  thick.'^  This  is  a  larger  brick,  it  will  be  seen,  than 
either  of  those  we  have  given.     It  is  older. 

Early  brick  are  apt  to  be  badly  moulded,  and  are  often  under- 
burnt.  The  clay  was  put  into  the  moulds  by  hand,  and,  as  no 
other  pressure  seems  to  have  been  applied,  it  never  was  as  solid 
as  in  a  modern  specimen.  The  burn  was  purposely  undertimed 
in  many  cases,  for  many  of  the  brick,  especially  in  the  fillings  of 
the  walls  of  wooden  houses,  are  little  better  than  sun-dried.  On 
the  other  hand  many  brick  were  burned  until  they  were  nearly 
vitrified,  and  were  so  composed  that  this  burning  brought  out  a 
splendid  dull   blue  color,  especially  on  the  ends.      The  artistic  use 


'  Atwater,  History,  pp.  46,  47,  note. 

■'  The  same,  p.  160,  et  seq. 

^  R.  Nevill.      Old  Cottage  and  Domestic  Architecture  in  Soiit/m-est  Surrey ,  p. 


182  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

which  the  old  workmen  made  of  tliese  blue  brick  we  shall  explain 
a  little  later. 

In  our  clay  the  trade  of  the  mason  includes  work  in  both  stone 
and  brick.  In  early  colonial  days  this  was  not  the  case.  The 
mason  worked  in  stone  entirely,  and  his  brother  craftsman,  who 
wrought  well -bonded  brickwork,  went  by  the  name  of  brick -layer. 
This  distinction,  which  of  course  belonged  to  the  England  of  our 
forefathers,  exists  in  that  country  to-day.  It  is  curious  to  observe 
that  the  court  order  in  the  Connecticut  colony  regulating  wages 
speaks  of  the  mason  only,  while  that  in  New  Haven,  which  we 
have  so  often  quoted,  mentions  only  the  brick -layer.  It  is  prob- 
able that  from  the  presence  in  a  town  of  only  one  of  these  crafts- 
men who  thus  had  to  do  the  work  generally  given  to  the  other 
as  well  as  that  which  by  custom  fell  to  him,  the  uniting  of  the 
two  crafts  in   this  country  came  about. 

The  mason  used  a  trowel  and  an  axe.  The  bricklayer  used 
the  trowel,  but  instead  of  the  axe  he  employed  a  peculiar  sort  of 
hammer.  Neither  of  these  tools  occurs  in  any  inventory  we  have 
seen  except  that  of  Governor  Katon,  where  one  item  includes: 
"2  ston  axes  with  brick,  axes,  &  trowells."'  We  are  tempted  to 
reconstruct  the  text  and  to  free  the  word  brick  from  its  curious 
association  with  the  two  stone -axes,  so  that  the  reading  would 
become  "brick  axes,"  even  though  the  comma  stands  where  it 
docs. 

Lime.  In  the  river  towns,  with  the  passible  exception  of  Say- 
brook,  this  material  appears,  in  the  earliest  days  of  the  colony,  to 
have  been  wholly  wanting.  The  first  mention  of  it  in  the  town 
records    of    Hartford    occurs    under    the    date    December    30,    1679, 


'  See  Appendix  I. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  183 

when :  "  The  Towne  gaue  Liberty  that  Majo'  Tallcott  capt  Nicho 
Olmsted  M'  Jonathan  gillbertt  Engs  Nathaniell  Stanly  and  Caleb 
Stanley  should  Looke  out  sum  Conveniant  place  Neere  the  Land- 
ing place  ffor  Thomas  Viger  to  Burne  Lyme  and  to  sett  a  small 
Howse  to  secure  his   Lyme " 

"  uppon  which  the  said  Yigers  did  promice  the  people  of  the 
Towne  should  not  giue  aboue  eighteene  pence  a  Bushel  for  the 
Lyme  they  bought  of  him."  ' 

This  entry  marks  the  introduction  of  lime  into  Hartford  and 
the  surrounding  country,-  but  at  first  the  use  of  the  new  material 
must  have  been  confined  to  the  houses  of  the  ministers  and  of 
the  wealthier  people.  The  employment  of  it  gradually  spread  till, 
in  the  better  houses  of  the  third  period,  we  find  it  universal  in 
the  older  towns.  Clay  was  still  used,  however,  for  a  very  long 
lime  in  the  outlying  settlements,  and,  for  inside  work,  in  the  more 
ancient  towns  also. 

It  would  be  very  interesting  to  know  where  Vigers  obtained 
his  raw  material.  Did  he  import  oyster-shells  from  Saybrook  or 
from  the  New  Haven  colony  ?  We  do  not  remember  an  instance 
of  -shell  lime  in  Hartford.  Or  did  he  receive  the  limestone  from 
Lime  Rock,  near  Providence,  as  the  people  of  Massachusetts  did 
even  in    1763? 

In  a  letter  dated  August  19,  1669,''  and  addressed  "To  my 
honored  friend,  Mr.  John  W'inthrop,  Governor  of  Connecticut,  &c," 
Roger  Williams  says : 

"  Sir,   I    have   encouraged    Mr.   Dexter  to  send   you  a  limestone. 


'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  Collec/ions.  VI,  p.  i8g. 

'Imported  lime  may  possibly  have  been  used  as  early  as  1675. 

^  A'^arraganselt  Club  Publications,  vol.   VI,   pp.   321-2.      (Letters  of  Roger    Williams.)     The   Mr. 
Dexter  was  Gregorj-  De.\ter,  one  of  the  most  prominent  of  the  early  settlers  of  Providence. 


184  EARI.V     CONNF.CTICUT     HOUSES. 

and  to  salute  you  with  this  enclosed.  He  is  an  intelligent  man, 
a  master-printer  of  London Sir,  if  there  be  any  occa- 
sion of  yourself  (or  others)  to  use  any  of  this  stone,  Mr.  Dexter 
hath  a  lusty  team  and  lusty  sons,  and  very  willing  heart,  (being  a 
sanguine,  cheerful  man)  to  do  yourself  or  any  (at  your  word  espe- 
cially) service   upon   my  honest  and  cheap  considerations;     .     .     ." 

It  is  very  possible  that  we  have  here  the  source  of  Vigers' 
supply  of  limestone. 

Lime  was  used  in  New.  London  from  the  beginning  of  the 
settlement.  Shell  lime  was  probably  used  at  the  outset,  though 
perhaps  a  supply  was  imported  from  Newport,  where  an  island 
in  the  harbor  is  composed  entirely  of  limestone.  It  is  probable 
that,  if  W'inthrop  took  advantage  of  Roger  Williams'  introduction 
to  him  of  Gregory  Dexter,  owner  of  a  limestone  quarry  near  Provi- 
dence, some  good  result  therefrom  would  have  come  to  his  own 
settlement  of  New   London. 

In  New  Haven  one  of  the  first  entries  on  the  records  of  the 
colony  speaks  of  the  use  of  lime.  Permission  was  given  Novem- 
ber 3,  1639,  or,  as  the  record  has  it,  it  was  "ordered  thatt  Mr. 
Hopkins  shall  have  two  hogsheads  of  lime  for  his  present  vse, 
and  as  much  more  as  will  finnish  his  house  as  he  now  intends 
itt,  he  thinking  that  two  hogsheads  more  will  serve."  ' 

Again,  in  the  order  regulating  prices,  passed  June  11,  1640,  we 
find  the  following: 

"  Lime  well  burnt  vnslaked,  and  brought  by  water  to  the  land- 
ing place  of  the  towne,  by  the  bushell  heaped,  not  above  9'',  a 
bushell,    by    the    hogshead,    full    gage    and    so    putt    in    that    when 

'  A'cw  Haven   Colonial  Rfconls,  I.  p    24. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  185 

carted  from  the  water  side  to  the  place  where  it  shall  be  vsed 
the   hogshead   ma}'  yet   remaine  full,  not  above   5',   ""jp  hogshead."' 

Here  we  again  encounter  the  question,  whence  the  lime  was 
to  be  brought  to  the  landing-place  of  the  town.  The  presence  of 
lime  is  certain,  from  the  permission  given  to  Hopkins,  and  it 
seems  almost  equally  sure  that  the  supply  was  not  very  great.  It 
does  not  seem  possible  that  any  lime  could  have  been  brought 
from  England  by  Davenport's  company,  for  they  did  not  come 
directly  to  New  Haven.  The  truth  probably  is  that  several  hogs- 
heads came  in  the  ships  which,  in  the  summer  of  1639,  ~  brought 
the  settlers  of  Guilford  and  of  Southold  to  the  harbor  of  Quinni- 
piac,  and  that  the  fathers  of  New  Haven  expected  more,  which 
may  or  may  not  have  come,  for  the  commerce  of  the  new  colony 
never  attained   the  limit  set  by  the  hopes  of  good  Governor  Eaton. 

A  little  later,  July  i,  1640,  we  find  that  Arthur  Halbidz  was 
"charged   w'h   falce  measure   in   lime."'^ 

We  know,  from  the  ISaldwin  house,  Branford,  and  from  the 
Painter  house,  West  Haven,  that  shell  lime  was  used  in  the  New 
Haven  jurisdiction.  The  amount  of  imported  lime,  if  there  was 
any,  was  probably  small,  and  the  price  of  it  high.  The  records, 
so  far  as  we  know  them,  do  not  speak  directly  of  shell  lime. 
They  do,  however,  speak  of  the  oyster-shell  field''  and  of  those 
accustomed  to  use  it. 

Oyster  shells  can  be  burnt  and  thus  made  to  yield  a  carbonate 

'  JVe^v  Haven   Colonial  Records,  I.  p.  24. 

*  Atwater,  History,  p.  160,  et  seq.  It  is  possible  tliat  the  deposit  of  limestone  wiiicti,  Lambert 
says,  exists  in  the  northern  part  of  the  Milford  settlement  furnished  the  lime  which  the  New  Haven 
builders  would  have  to  be  measured  with  such  care. 

Limestone  was  imported  into  Virginia  from   Bermuda. 

'''New  Haven   Col   A'ee.,  I,  p.  3S. 

^  "  Keb.  25.  i()4i.  It  is  ordered  that  the  common  lield  called  the  oyster  shell  field  shall  lie  let 
to  such  persons  whose  present  need  rec|uires  it."     X.  //.  Co/.  A'ee.  I,  p.  62. 


ISPl  EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

of  lime  which  will  slake,  exhibitina:  in  so  dointr  the  heat  char- 
acteristic  of  stone  lime,  though  not  to  so  great  a  degree,  and 
producing  a  hydrate  of  lime  in  the  same  way.  Only  from  .sixty 
to  sixty-five  per  cent,  of  the  bushel  of  burnt  shells  was  carbonate 
of  lime,  however,  so  that  the  product  did  not  compare  favorably, 
except  in  cheapness,  with  the  lime  made  by  burning  the  natural 
stone.  It  was,  at  times,  all  that  could  be  obtained,  and,  such  as 
it  was,  the  settlers  used  it,  and  in  Virginia'  found  it  superior  to 
some  kinds  to  which  they  had  been  accustomed  in  Old  England. 
The  fact  that,  away  from  the  Sound  and  the  large  rivers,  we 
find  no  lime  till  very  late,  is  proof  that,  whether  made  from  shell 
or  from  stone,  the  material  was  scarce  and  dear. 

Mortar.  In  Hartford  the  early  mortar,  as  we  should  expect 
from  the  records,  contains  no  lime.  It  is  merely  clay  mixed  with 
hay  in  a  very  ancient  fashion,  found  even  at  Mycenao  and  Tirxns, 
where  chopped  straw  binds  the  clay  mortar,  which  still  exists  in 
the  gigantic  masonrv.  All  the  old  chimnevs  in  Hartford  and  the 
neighboring  towns  are  laid  in  this  primitive  mortar,  a  fact  which 
accounts  for  the  persistent  habit  of  electing  chimney-viewers. 

This  clay  mortar  is  pretty  closely  confined  to  the  river  towns 
and  to  the  settlements  descended  from  them.  It  disappeared 
slowly  after  lime  was  introduced,  that  is  after  1679,  as  after  that 
date  we  begin  to  find  lime  mortar  in  the  walls  of  the  Connecti- 
cut houses. 

In  New  London  and  its  dependencies  we  have  only  once 
found  the  clay,  but  in  its  stead  the  lime  mortar  to  which  we 
are  accustomed  in   Rhode   Island  work. 


'  Bullock's    Virginia,  p.  3,  quoted  by  Bruce.     Economic  Uislory  of  Virginia,  II.  p.  158. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  187 

In  New  Haven,  as  we  might  expect  from  the  records  already 
quoted,  lime  mortar  was  the  rule.  An  analysis  of  the  mortar  from 
the  cellar  wall  in  the  Baldwin  house  at  Branford  gave  the  follow- 
ing results : 

"  Silica  (sand) 30.  14 

Lime  Carbonate 5 1  •  44 

Clay 3 .  70 

Iron   O.xide 4.10 

Organic 10.  10 

99.48 

Sample  also  contains  traces  of  calcium  hydroxide  and  of  mag- 
nesium  carbonates." ' 

Foundations.  The  foundation,  or  the  underpinning  as  it  was 
called,  was  built  of  the  stone  in  common  use  in  each  settlement. 
Sometimes,  that  is  to  say.  it  was  of  field  stone ;  sometimes  of 
roughly  quarried  material. 

In  early  times,  and  in  all  periods  to  a  certain  e.xtent,  where 
lime  was  scarce,  the  walls  of  the  cellars  were  laid  up  dry.  At  a 
later  date  lime  mortar  appears,  as  in  the  Hollister  house;  and  it 
is  probable  that  many  old  walls  were  pointed  over,  that  is,  had 
their  joints  filled  with  mortar,  after  the  new  material  became 
common. 

But,  while  around  Hartford  scarcely  any  old  walls  with  lime 
mortar  occur  before  1680,  there  were,  in  the  New  Haven  and 
New  London  settlements,  some  walls,  at  least,  which  were  laid 
in   that  material   even   at  the  beginning  of   those   plantations. 


'  Report  of  analysis  made  by  Prof.  E.  E.  Calder  of  Brown  University. 


188  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

These  remarks  generally  hold  true  of  the  foundations  under 
the  chininevs,  thoucrh  here  there  may  be  instances  of  the  use  of 
clay  mortar. 

Where  there  was  no  cellar  the  foundations  were  laid  in  trenches 
which  may  not  always  have  been  carried  deep  enough  to  avoid 
frost  —  as  under  the  back  wall  of  the  lean-to  in  the  John  Barnard 
house,  Hartford,  built  1767,  where  the  stones  seem  thrown  about 
by  the  process  of  freezing  and  thawing.  Generally,  from  what  we 
have  seen  in  Rhode  Island,  the  pertinacity  with  which  these  old 
pieces  of  wall  will  stay  in  place,  especially  at  a  corner,  makes  us 
think   that   the   trenches  were  fairly  deep. 

Brick  underpinning,  now  so  common,  does  not  appear  till  quite 
late,  as  in  the  Meggatt  house,  Wethersfield,  1730,  where  it  is  laid  in 
lime  mortar.  We  have  already  spoken  of  the  elaborately  wrought 
brown  stone   underpinning  of  the   Webb  house,  in  the  same  town. 

Chimxevs.  The  word  chimney,  in  tlie  mouth  of  the  early 
craftsmen,  meant  generallv  what  we  call  a  flue,  while  our  chimney 
was  to  them  a  stack.  Thus,  in  the  records  of  New  London, 
occurs  an  order,  which  we  have  already  quoted,  about  the  min- 
ister's house  which  was  to  have  "a  stack  of  stone  chimneys  in 
the  midst." 

The  chimney  appears  very  early  in  the  records  of  Hartford,  in 
a  vote  which  introduces  us  to  that  time -honored  officer  of  the 
river  towns,  the  "chimney-viewer,"  and  informs  us  that,  in  Sep- 
tember, 1639,  certain  chimneys  in  the  place  were  of  brick  and 
others  of  clay.  The  brick  chimneys  must  have  belonged  to  Pas- 
tor Hooker,  Governor  Haynes,  Mr.  Wyllys,  and  a  few  others.  It 
is  very  strange  that  stone  stacks  should  not  be  mentioned,  when 
the   ver}'   next   order  on   the   same   page   is   the   prohibition    of    dig- 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  189 

ging  stone  at  "  Goodman  Lord's."  Perhaps,  because  they  had 
much  thicker  walls  than  the  brick  chimneys,  they  were  consid- 
ered to  be  secure.  It  is  quite  likely,  on  the  other  hand,  that  we 
must  take  the  record  to  mean  literally  that,  outside  of  the  wealthy 
houses,  all  the   chimneys  at  that  early  time  were  of  clay. 

A  clay  chimney  was  either  of  small  logs  laid  cob -fashion  and 
plastered  inside  and  out  with  the  material  from  which  it  took  its 
name,  or  it  was  made  of  four  upright  posts,  between  which  laths 
or  "wattle"  —  small  interwoven  branches — were  secured  and  plas- 
tered heavily  on  both  inner  and  outer  faces  with  clay  which  had 
been  well  mixed  with  hay.  Nor  is  this  form  of  chimney  so  much 
a  makeshift  of  the  frontier  as  many  imao;ine.  It  was  a  very  an- 
cient  type  in  England,  and  one  which  was  in  good  standing,  or 
at  least  in  use,  in  many  places  in  the  mother  country  at  the  time 
our  fathers  migrated.  Mr.  Nevill '  cites  the  vote  of  the  "chief 
inhabitants  and  headborousjhs  of  Clare,"  a  Suffolk  town,  orderinir 
certain  "clay"  chimneys  of  this  class  to  be  torn  down  and  the 
places  of  them  to  be  supplied  with  stacks  of  brick.  Stone  chim- 
neys may  have  been  new  to  the  earlier  settlers  of  Hartford,  who 
very  likeh'  came,  as  we  know  some  of  them  did,  from  brick  or 
timber  districts. 

Clay  chimneys  had  need,  of  course,  of  careful  watching  on  the 
part  of  the  viewers.  But  it  must  not  be  supposed  that,  because 
the  office  endured  for  a  long  time,  that  form  of  chimney  lasted  as 
long.  The  stone  chimney  drove  it  out  of  use  in  a  short  time;  but 
even  the  stone  chimney,  secure  as  it  seemed  at  first,  did  not  do 
away  with  the  services  of  the  "  looker."  These  stacks  were  built 
of  the  material    which   prevailed   in   the   district:    field   stone,   rough- 

'  R.  Nevill,  Anciunt  Cottage  and  Domestic  Architecture,  etc.,  pp.  v-vi  (2d  edition). 


190  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

hewn  stone  from  the  quarries,  or  both ;  and  in  the  Connecticut 
colony  this  material  was  laid  in  mortar  composed  of  wet  clay 
mixed  with  hay.  As  long  as  the  clay  was  moist  it  filled  the  joints 
ver}^  well;  but,  since  the  heat  of  the  fire  gradually  dried  it,  and 
since  the  masonry  was  generally  of  inferior  workmanship,  the  clay, 
in  spite  of  the  binding  influence  of  the  hay,  tended  constantly  to 
drop  out,  leaving  passages  for  sparks  and  flames.  Hence,  the  habit 
of  electing  chimney-viewers  persisted  so  long  in  the  river  towns, 
or  at  least  in  Hartford.  If  this  persistence  had  been  due  to  the 
continued  building  of  clay  chimneys  these  must  have  been  used 
as  late  as  1706,  the  date  of  the  election  of  the  last  chimney-viewer 
who  fisfures  in  the   Hartford  book  of  town  votes. 

The  tops  of  the  stone  chimneys  in  Connecticut  were  generally 
of  squared  stone  laid  with  considerable  care,  and  capped  with  one 
or  more  thin  courses,  \\4iich  project  like  moulded  bands  and  cast 
excellent  shadows.  In  the  \\'hitman  house,  Farmington,  there  are 
three  courses,  forming  three  successive  projections.  In  the  Clark 
house,  in  the  same  town,  there  were  two  sharply  defined  project- 
ing courses,  one  at  very  top,  the  other  a  little  way  below  it. 

There  is,  just  above  the  point  where  the  slope  of  the  roof 
meets  the  face  of  the  stack,  a  water-table  or  narrow  projecting 
strip  of  stone  which  prevented  the  rain-water  from  following  down 
the  stone -work  into  the  house.  It  is  curious,  however,  that  the 
ledge  which,  in  Rhode  Island,  performs  the  same  office  on  each 
side  of  the  chimney  above  the  ridge,  is  not  common  in  Connecti- 
cut in  any  colony. 

The  pilastered  chimney,  too,  which,  in  stone,  is  characteristic 
of  Rhode  Island,  and  which,  in  brick,  is  common  to  that  colony 
and  to  Massachusetts,  we  have  never  found  in  the  limits  of  Con- 
necticut. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


191 


W'e  have  already  said  that  the  chimneys  of  the  New  Haven 
and  New  London  jurisdictions  are,  as  a  rule,  laid  in  mortar  of 
lime.  The  tops  are  generally  very  plain,  and  the  later  ones  of 
stone  —  stone  chimneys  lingered  long  in  Guilford  —  are  of  squared 
gneiss,  with  projecting  courses  as  a  cap.  Brick  tops  are  very  com- 
mon for  stone  chimneys  in  these  colonies,  as  indeed  they  are  in 
Connecticut,  and  it  is  often  impossible,  in  the  later  examples  espe- 


~^HITFICLO  ifevSC 


Figure  ?9.— Chimnev  Of  Whitfield  House. 


cially,   to    say   whether    these  are   original    or  whether    they   simply 
replace  older  tops  which  have  succumbed  to  the  weather. 

The  most  interesting  chimney  in  Connecticut,  and  the  oldest, 
is  that  at  the  north  end  of  the  Whitfield  house  at  Guilford.  This 
is  built  of  roughly  quarried  stone  laid  in  lime  mortar,  and  now 
covered  with  cement  stucco.  It  is  very  wide  at  the  base,  where 
it  projects  some   three  feet  from  the   end  of  the  house ;  and  as  it 


102 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


rises  it  narrows  on  each  side  —  but  not  on  the  back  which  main- 
tains the  same  projection  —  a  narrowing  accomplished  by  the  same 
off-sets    and    sloped    weatherings    which    we    find    in    church    but- 


'-*yf:;r 


,;r".-^^- v;- - '■>'■ 


FiGURF  90.— Chimney  of  Thoroughgood  House. 

tresses,  and  which  we  usually  associate  with  "  Gothic "  architect- 
ure. This  off-setting  of  chimneys  was  common  enough  in  Eng- 
land, and  here,  too,  in  brick  and  stone  houses,  though  all  other 
e.xamples  in   New   England   have  disappeared.      It  still  exists   in   the 


EARLY     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES.  193 

brick  house  of  Adam  Thoroughgood,  2d,  built  1640-50,'  in  Prin- 
cess Anne  County,  Virginia.  There  are  traces  of  it  also  still  re- 
maining, though  obscured  by  alterations,  in  the  Malvern  house, 
near  Malvern   Hill,  in   the  same  State.     This  also  is  of  brick.- 

The  brick  chimneys  are  of  the  same  general  form  as  those  of 
stone.  We  have  already  remarked  on  the  number  of  instances  in 
which  a  brick  topping-out  of  a  stone  stack  occurs.  In  one  ex- 
ample, the  Dorus  Barnard  house,  Hartford,  the  chimney  is  of 
stone  up  to  the  second  floor,  and  of  brick  above  that  point,  as 
in  the  Field  house  and  the  Waterman  house  in  Providence.  The 
brick  stack  no  doubt  replaced  a  ruinous  construction  of  stone.  It 
is  worthy  of  remark  tliat  the  stone  part  of  this  chimney  appears  on 
the  outside  of  the  house  at  the  back,  and  was  not  originally  covered. 
This  is  unicjue.  There  is  a  chimney  at  Saybrook  wliich  appears 
on  the  outside  for  one  story  at  the  end  of  a  house,  but  this 
coming  to  the  outside  at  the  back,  where  there  was,  as  a  rule,  a 
foot  or  more  between  chimney  and  studs,  is  very  peculiar.'' 

The  brick  tops,  whether  they  crown  chimneys  which  are  wholly 
of  brick  or  chimneys  which  are  of  stone  to  the  roof  or  to  some 
point  below  it,  are  of  a  very  plain  type.  That  of  the  Sheldon 
Woodbridge  house,  Hartford,  has  two  string  courses,  each  consist- 
ing of  one  projecting  course,  drawn  around  it  at  different  heights. 
The  most  picturesque  decoration  occurs  in  the  Talcott  house,  a 
late   example,  at   Glastonbury.      In   this  stack  there  are  two  strings 


'  We  know  this   house   by  photographs    kindly  loaned   to  us   by  the   Virginia   Historical   Society 

through  its  former  Corresponding  Secretary,  Mr.  Philip  A.  Bruce,  author  of  The  Economic  His- 
tory of  Virginia  in   ihc  XVI Ith   Century. 

''See  drawing  in  Battles  and  Leaders  of  the  Civil  War,  vol.  II,  p.  422.  Note  the  pattern  on 
the  chimney. 

^  There  is  a  brick  —  end  one  —  story  house  —  or  story-and-a-half  —  in  (Guilford,  the  gable  of 
which,  above  the  brick,  is  of  wood. 


104 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 


at  different  levels,  but  they  consist  of  courses  which  are  not  of 
simple  projecting  brick,  but,  as  the  drawing  in  Figure  91  shows, 
of  brick  set  with  their  angles  outward,  so  as  to  make  a  horizontal 
saw-tooth  or  zig-zag.  This  is  not  uncommon  between  two  plain 
projecting  courses,  but,  used  alone  and  with  as  bold  projection  and 
strong  coloring  as  this,  for  many  of  the  brick  are  blue,  it  is  a 
rare  and  striking  combination.  The  same  effect  is  repeated,  not 
quite    so    w^ell,   in    a    house    in    East    Hartford.     Beyond    these    two 


Figure  91.— Chlmnev  of  Talcott  House. 


examples    we    have    seen    no  other   instance    of   this    original    treat- 
ment, which  certainly  deserves  to  be  put  into  use  again. 

The  chimneys  of  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge  house  are  in  the 
end  walls,  and  here,  as  we  have  already  explained,  the  north  wall 
is  practically  only  the  back  of  the  stack.  In  this  north  wall  we 
find  the  earliest  remaining  example  of  the  use  of  the  blue  headers 
to  which  we  referred  in  the  pages  on  brick.  The  work  is  laid 
partly  in  Flemish,  partly  in  running  a  bond — which,  except  length- 
wise, is  no  bond  at  all.     Five  courses  are  laid  all  stretchers — bricks 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


195 


set  lensthwise  in  the  wall  —  and  then  come  two  courses  laid  in 
Flemish  bond,  that  is  with  the  stretchers  and  headers  —  bricks 
with  their  length  across  the  wall  —  in  alternation.  The  bond  is 
so  arranged,  too,  that  the  headers  in  the  upper  course  come  over 
the  centers  of  the  stretchers  of  the  lower  course,  and  the  reverse, 
as  will  be  plain  from  the  Figure.  And,  as  the  headers  are  burned 
to  a  dark  blue,  it  will  be  seen 
that  a  very  effective,  though  ^^'"^b'fe 
simple,  pattern  is  the  result. 
In  the  gable  of  this  same 
north  end  is  a  quite  compli- 
cated piece  of  herring-bone 
work,  as  it  is  called,  where 
the  brick,  laid  zisj-zag  —  the 
meaning  of  herring-bone  — 
are  combined  into  a  rectan- 
gular panel. 

This  use  of  blue  headers 
persisted  long  in  the  Con- 
necticut valley,  and  produced 
some  very  artistic  results. 
There  is  one  house  in  South 

Windsor,  built  as  late  as  the  first  quarter  of  this  century,  which 
has  worked  out  upon  its  walls  in  blue  headers  just  such  a  diaper 
pattern  of  intersecting  diagonal  lines  as  we  see  in  old  F"rench 
work,  or  in  the  old  walls  of  Hampton  Court  Palace.  The  checker 
pattern  of  light  and  dark  brick  is  characteristic  of  old  work  in 
Virginia,  and  the  Connecticut  fondness  for  Flemish  bond  is  also  a 
strong-    reminder    of    the     Old     Dominion.       The     same    traditions 


Wall 


Figure  g2 —Brick  Details  of  Sheldon  Woodbridge 
House. 


196  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

of  brick -laying  must  have  come  with  the  settlers  of  both  col- 
onies.' 

The  chimneys  of  the  oldest  type  had  but  two  fireplaces,  which 
were  never  very  large.  The  opening  was  spanned  by  a  wooden 
lintel,  which,  in  the  Paterson  house,  Berlin,  rested  at  each  end  on 
a  wooden  tic  reaching  from  face  to  face  of  the  stack,  and  sup- 
porting in  the  same  manner  the  lintel  of  the  opposite  fireplace, 
while  it  served  also  to  tie  together  the  clumsily  built  stone-work 
of  the  chimney. 

Fireplaces  in  the  second  story  were  rare  in  early  times,  and 
were  confined  to  the  houses  of  the  richer  sort.  The  stack  above 
the  roof,  therefore,  generally  contained  one  large  flue  or  two  flues 
separated  by  a  '-withe"  of  thin  stone  on  edge,  and  was  oblong  in 
plan.  In  the  oldest  houses  it  often  went  through  the  roof  behind 
the  ridge,  or  at  any  rate  with  its  center  behind  the  peak,  though 
this  must  not  be  relied  on  as  a  mark  of  an  old  house,  for  the 
Benjamin  house,  Milford.  which  is  very  late,  has  this  characteristic. 

The  hearths  of  the  stone  chimneys  were  of  flat  stone,  as  were 
sometimes  those  of  the  brick  chimneys  also.  Brick  hearths,  on 
the  other  hand,  occur  not  only  with  brick  chimneys,  but  with 
stone  where  the  old  wide  fireplace  has  been  filled  up,  as  many  of 
our  plans  and  sections  will  show,  with  a  smaller  brick  fireplace 
which  has  an  oven  at  one   side  of  it. 

This  occurs  in  the  old  hall  very  often,  but  it  also  meets  us  in 
the  new  fireplace  built  at  the  back  of  the  old  chimney  when  the 
lean-to  was  added  to  the  house.  These  new  fireplaces  are  backed 
up   against   the   old    stack,   which    is  sometimes  cut   into   to  accom- 


'  In  Khode  Island,  English  bond  is  the  rule.  Flemish,  though  used,  appears  generally  only  in 
belt  courses.  The  Israel  Sayles  house,  Xfoshassuck,  has  a  fine  three -course  belt  in  Flemish  bond 
with  blue  headers.     The  date  is  c.  1730. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  197 

modate  them,  and  the  flue  is  run  up  along  the  back  of  the  origi- 
nal chimney,  generally  in  a  clumsy  way  impossible  to  mistake,  and 
is  either  taken  through  the  roof  behind  the  old  top,  as  at  the 
Whitman  house,  so  that  the  joint  is  apparent,  or  is  blended  with 
the  old  flues  into  a  new  cap,  so  that  it  is  only  in  the  garret 
and  the  lean-to  chamber  that  the  addition  can  be  detected.  The 
L-shaped  plan  occurs  above  the  roof,  notably  in  the  John  Barnard 
and  in  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge  house,  Hartford.  In  the  Fitz- 
Greene  Halleck  house,  Guilford,  and  in  the  Shelley  house,  Madi- 
son, both  late,  the  flues  are  combined  to  form  a  cross -shaped  plan 
above  the  ridge. 

Plaster.  This  appears  in  Hartford,  Windsor,  and  Wethers- 
field,  in  the  last  quarter  of  the  seventeenth  century,  or  about  the 
time  Thomas  Viger  set  up  his  lime  kiln  in  the  year  1679.'  Its 
introduction  was  doubtless  gradual.  The  richer  houses  would,  of 
course,  be  plastered  first. 

For  the  minister's  house  in  Simsbury,  in  1697,  were  required, 
among  other  materials,  a  "load  of  lath  timber,"'  which  may  have 
meant  the  laths  themselves,  or  the  oak  boards  from  which  they 
were  to  be  riven,  and  "  two  days'  plastering." 

We  do  not  know,  even  approximately,  the  date  at  which  plaster 
came  into  use  in  New  London,  but  we  may  assume  that  it  was 
somewhere  near  the  time  at  which  it  appeared  in  Hartford,  though, 
from  the  prevalence  of  lime  in  the  early  work,  we  might  be  justi- 
fied  in  claiming  an  earlier  introduction. 

In  this,  as  in  other  material,  the  superior  wealth  of  New  Haven 
put  it  in  advance  of  the  other  settlements. 

'  The    ]rin,isor  Recoids  contain  an  item  of  ;^5  for  lath  and  nails  for  the  meeting-house  in  1661. 
•A.  C.   Bates.  Rev.   Dudley    Woodbridge,  his  Church  Record  at  Simsbury  in  Conn.,  1697-1710. 
H'fd,  1894. 


198  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

In  an  order  concerning  wages,  passed  in  May,  1641,  we  find 
tlie  following : 

"  Plastering,  for  drawing  and  carrying  water,  scaffolding,  lath- 
ing, laying  and  finishing  the  plastering,  provideing  and  paying  his 
laborer,  haveing  the  lime  clay,  sand,  hayre,  hay  w'h  materialls  for 
scaffolding  layd  neare  the  place. 

By  the  yeard  for  seeling  4  —  ob,  for  the  side  walls,  being- 
whole  or  in  great  paints  4'',  betwixt  the  studs,  the  studs  not 
measured,  5''  —  ob.  rendring  between  the  studs  2''."' 

The  lime,  sand,  and  hair  in  this  list  of  the  ingredients  of  the 
plaster  which  existed  or  was  to  exist  in  New  Haven,  are  familiar 
in  our  modern  work.  Not  so  the  clay  and  the  hay,  however.  The 
presence  of  these  admits  of  two  explanations.  One  is  that  the 
mixture  was  used  for  filling  between  the  studs,  in  the  fashion  famil- 
iar to  the  carpenters  in  their  old  home,  whether  the  filling  was 
plastered  on  the  outside  with  lime  or  was  covered  with  clapboards. 
The  other  is  that  hay  and  clay  were  used,  either  on  lath  or  on 
brick  fillintr,  as  a  first  coat.  Both  these  methods  were  no  doubt 
in  use.  The  former  is  the  older,  and  disappeared  so  soon  as  brick 
became  common.  It  still  survives  in  the  back  wall,  or  a  part  of 
it,  in  the  Roger  Williams  house  at  Salem,  where  it  can  be  seen 
in   the  irarret  over  the  old  hall  chamber. 

Lathing,  laying,  and  finishing  is  the  process  used  for  "seeling" 
or  plastering  overhead.  Rendering  is  the  name  given  to  the  first 
coat  on  the  side  walls,  because  these  were  of  clay  and  hay  or  of 
brick  filled  in  between  the  studs.  "Rendering"  is  to-day  the 
English  workman's  expression  for  the  first  coat  on  a  brick  wall, 
while    "laying"    means    to    him    the    first    coat    on    laths,  just   as    it 


^  New  Haven  Colonial  Records,  vol.  I,  p.  55. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  199 

meant  to  the  plasterer  in  early  New  Haven.  These  names  for 
the  processes  have  disappeared  from  our  New  England  vocabulary. 

The  word  "  paine "  or  pane,  means  the  same  as  panel,  and  is 
used  for  the  wide  space  between  the  posts  at  the  corners,  or  be- 
tween these  and  the  posts  at  the  doors  or  at  any  intermediate 
point,  in  distinction  from  the  little  spaces  between  the  studs  which, 
because  of  the  greater  care  required,  took  more  time  and  hence 
cost  more. 

Plaster  was  in  use  at  Stamford  as  early  as  1644,  for,  accord- 
ing to  the  court  record  of  that  year,  an  Indian  struck  a  woman 
of  the  town  with  a  lathing  hammer.' 

II.      Wood-Work   and    Framing. 

Boards  and  timber.  Our  forefathers  brought  over  with  them 
certain  ideas  about  the  sizes  of  timber,  the  measurement  of  it,  and 
the  names  by  which  the  different  varieties  should  be  known.  Al- 
though the  sizes  they  used  coincide  in  remarkable  ways  with  those 
we  have  inherited  from  them,  the  mode  of  measuring  and  the 
names  were  often  quite  different.  In  the  matter  of  names,  we 
have  discarded  several  terms  which  are  still  found  in  the  vocabu- 
larv  of  the  English  architects  and  builders. 

The  saw  mill  was  not  an  early  institution  in  Connecticut.  The 
pit  appears  first  and  holds  its  own  for  many  years.  In  Hartford 
it  was  voted,  January  7,  1639:  "that  whoesoever  hath  digged  any 
Saw  pitts  or  other  pitts  not  now  in  vse  —  shall  fifill  vpe  the  same 
.  .  .  .  or  whosoever  hath  digged  Anny  such  pitt  .  .  .  . 
and  is  in  vse  he  shall  Cover  the.  same  when  they  are  absent.'"- 

^  A'em  Haven  Col.  Jfec,  I,  p.  135.     The  word  lath  may  mean  only  clay-work,   it  must  be  noted. 
'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  Collections,  VI,  p.  11. 


200  EARLY     CONNECTICIT     HOUSES. 

In  these  pits,  with  their  top-sawyers  and  pitmen,  boards  and 
slit  worlc  were  sawn,  as  in  the  following  order  of  February  lo, 
1639:  "noe  man  shall  take  aboue  iiij"  vj''  ffor  saweing  of  Boards, 
and  v^  vj''  a'  for  slit  woork,  the  tymber  beeing  squard  and  layd  at 
the  pitt."  ' 

Two  years  later,  June  7,  1641,  the  price  had  fallen  somewhat, 
perhaps  because  labor  was  cheaper:  "Also  sawyers  shall  not  take 
abouve  4s.  2d.  for  slit  work  or  three-inch  plank,  nor  above  3s.  6d. 
for  boards,  by  the  hundred.  Also  boards  shall  not  be  sold  for 
above  5s.  vid.  the  hundred."  -  Boards  here  are  of  any  width,  and 
an  inch  or  an  inch  and  a  quarter  thick.  The  English  rule  for 
the  width  of  boards  is  between  4  and  9  inches,  but  the  size  of 
our  trees  soon  threw  that  into  disuse.  Slit  work  was  halved  board- 
ing, /.  e.  half  an  inch  thick. 

The  court  order  in  New  Haven  establishes  the  prices  for  work- 
ing lumber,  and  gives  a  very  clear  picture  of  the  process  of  get- 
ting out  board,  plank,  and  framing  timber. 

The  price  for  felling  comes  first  in  the  section  which  treats  of 
heavy  timber,  for  the  old  order,  which  bears  the  mark  of  Eaton's 
long  acquaintance  with  mercantile  affairs,  is  very  methodical. 

"  Falling  of  timber,  that  w'h  is  full  2  foote  ou'  or  above,  one 
w'h  another  not  above  3''  a  foote ;  lesser  timber,  being  yett  full 
iS  inches  ou'  and  under  2  foote,  not  above  2^  a  foote;  all  other 
trees  of  lesser  size  not  18  inches  ou',  either  by  dayes  wages,  or 
as  shall  be  reasonably  agreed."'*  The  order  of  May,  1641,  re- 
enacts  this  of  June,  1640,  almost  in  the  same  words,  with  a  reduc- 
tion   of   .prices.     It    speaks,    however,    of    "  fellers    of    timber,"    and 


'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  Collections,  vol.  VI,  p.  28. 

^  Col.  Rcc.  of  Conn.,  p.  65.     See  also  Conn.  Hist.  See,  Collections,  VI,  pp.  27-S. 

^  New  Haven  Col.  Kecords,  1,  p.  37. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  201 

fixes  their  wages  as:  "in  som'  nott  above  i8'',  in  winter  nott 
above  14''."'  Tliis  difference  between  tine  winter  and  the  summer 
wage  was  based  on  the  legal  day's  work,  which,  it  w-as  enacted, 
should  be  ten  or  twelve  hours  in  summer  and  only  eight  in 
winter. 

There  were  a  good  many  notions,  some  of  them  excellent,  which 
were  current  in  the  England  of  our  forefathers  as  to  the  time 
and  method  of  cutting  and  seasoning  timber.  These  ideas  came 
over  with  the  old  carpenters  and  woodmen,  but  we  can  trace  them 
only  in  the  quality  of  the  timber  these  men  put  into  the  houses 
they  built.  We  can  not  tell  whether  the  trees  were  ever  "cut 
down  after  the  full  of  the  moone,  that  the  sap  rot  not.  Prove 
not  worm  eaten."  ~  We  do  know  that  the  old  oak  must  have 
been  pretty  well  seasoned  in  those  houses  which  have  survived, 
for,  while  the  exposed  parts  of  the  stick  might  have  done  their 
seasoning  in  the  building,  it  would  not  be  so  with  the  joints. 
These  will  stand,  as  far  as  we  have  observed,  until  water  gets 
into  them.  In  unseasoned  sticks  dry  rot  attacks  the  end  fibres  of 
the  tenons   where  they  abut  against  the  pins  or  treenails. 

There  are  instances  which  go  contrary  to  this  general  state- 
ment, notably  the  trouble  which  the  New  Haven  men  had  over 
the  rotting  "pillars  and  groundsells "  of  the  meeting-house;''  and 
in  this  case  we  can  prove  that  there  was  no  seasoning  of  the 
frame,  for  an  order  of  the  court,  of  November  25,  1639,  reads: 
"  Itt  is   ordered  that  a  meeting   house  shall    be  built  forthw'h,  fift)' 


'  New  Haven   Col.  Rec,  I,  p.  53. 

"  The  Gate  of  Languages  Unlocked,  J.  A.  Comenio,  trans,  by  Tho.  Horn.  Sixth  ed.,  London, 
1643,  in  the  Library  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society.  The  passage  is  in  section  52S.  The 
words  in  italics  are  in  that  type  in  the  margin. 

^ New  Haven  Col.  Rec.,  I,  p.  423-4. 


202  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

foote  square,  and  that  the  carpenters  shall  fall  timber  where  they 
can  finde  it  till  allotm"  be  laid  out." ' 

The  lack  of  ventilation  in  the  cellars  produced  dry  rot,  so 
that  few  floors  retain  their  original  frames.  The  lowness  of  the 
underpinnings,  and  the  old  habit  of  banking  up  around  the  house 
in  winter  with  turf,  leaves,  or  sea-wee^,  caused  an  alternate  wet- 
ness and  dryness  fatal  not  only  to  the  base  board  and  the  lowest 
courses  of  shingles  or  clapboards,  but  also  to  the  sill  and  the 
posts.  Most  failures  in  the  frames  of  these  houses  are  due  to 
decay  in  the  sill  or  at  the  feet  of  the  posts. 

When  the  tree  was  on  the  cri-ound  and  the  branches  had  been 
cut  off,  the  next  operation  was  that  of  "  crosscutting  "  or  sawing 
the  trunk  into  the  lengths  desired,  which  was  to  be  paid  for  "  by 
the  day,  as  other  lab'^  or  as  shall  be  agreed  w^*"  equity."*  This 
work  was  done  by  two  men  with  the  large  two-handed  "cross- 
cut" saw,  also  called  a  "frameing  saw,"  which  is  used  now  as 
much  as  it  was  then  on  all  heavy  framing,  and  which  every  one 
has  seen. 

These  two  processes  disposed  of,  the  order  goes  on  to  give 
the  proper  wage  for  hewing.  Mark  that,  while  framing  timber 
was  sometimes  sawn,  as  we  shall  see,  there  is  no  talk  of  sawing 
these  heaviest  sticks.     The  law  says : 

"  Hewing  and  squaring  timber  of  severall  sizes,  one  w'h  an- 
other, butt  the  least  15  inches  square,  well  done  that  a  karfe  or 
plankc  of  2  inches  thicke  being  taken  off  on  2  sides,  the  rest 
may  be  square  for  boards  or  for  other  vse,  not  above  18''  a  tun 
girt  measure.     And  for  timber  sleightly  hewen   a  price  proportion- 


^  N'ew  Haven  Col.  Rec,  I,  p.  25. 
'The  same,  p.  37. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


203 


able,  or  by  day  wages.      As  for  sills,   beames,   plates   or  such   like 
timber,  square  hewen    to  build  w'h,  not  above  a  peny  a  foote  run- 


ning measure. 


This  kerf  was  not  a  saw  cut,  but  the  slab,  as  we  should  call 
it,  the  side  of  the  round  stick  necessarily  hewn  away  to  reduce  it 
to  a  beam  with  two  flat  sides.  The  hewing  down  was  done,  as 
Figure  93  explains,  by  cutting  "  scores "  at  intervals  along  the 
stick  as  deep  as  it  was  intended  to  hew,  and  then  splitting  away 
the  wood  betw-een  them.  These  old  score-marks  are  almost  always 
plainly  seen  on  all  framing  timber 
which  was  not  planed.  If  the  log 
was  to  be  sent  to  the  saw -pit  for 
conversion  into  boards  the  hewing 
evidently  stopped  here.  If  not,  the 
los:  was  turned  over  and  the  work 
went  on  till  the  state  was  reached 
which  is  described  as  "  square  hewn 
to  build  with." 

The  smaller  sticks  must  have  been  held  in  a  "  clave -stock " 
while  they  were  being  hewn.  This  was  the  same  as  the  standing 
vise  which  stair  builders,  in  the  days  of  curved  stairs,  used  in 
hewing;  out  their  rails.  It  was  awkward  to  hew  the  smaller  tim- 
ber,  however,  and  much  of  it  was  saw-ed  or  split.  The  rafters  in 
the  Hempstead  house,  which  go  back  to  1647,  ^^^  "ot  only  sawed 
but  planed.     Those  in  the  Joseph  Whiting  house  are  sawed. 

Hewing  was  by  no  means  the  long  and  wearisome  process  it 
is  sometimes  thought  to  have  been.      Any  one  who  has  seen  w-ork 


Int.  Kter  -i«EiNC  -  -5aw:ng 
Figure  gj. 


'iVcK»  Haven  Col.  Rec,  I.  p,  37. 

'  The  Gate  of  Knowledge   Unlocked^  §  527. 


204  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

go  on  in  a  ship-yard  knows  lliat  a  skillful  man  witli  a  sharp  broad- 
axe  (the  tool  these  old  woodmen  used)  can  hew  heavy  timber 
with  a  deftness  and  certainty  which  others  cannot  attain,  even  in 
sharpening  a  lead  pencil   with  a  small   knife. 

The  method  was  not  that  of  a  modern,  or  even  of  an  ancient, 
saw -mill,  but  it  was  a  natural  one  to  the  minds  of  those  who  used 
it,  and  it  remained  the  chief  method  of  getting  out  framing  timber 
till  long  after  the  Revolution.  In  the  remoter  parts  of  the  State 
there  are  carpenters  now  living  who  have  wrought  tlieir  timber 
in  that  way.  The  early  craftsmen  had  attained  in  their  hewing 
a  wonderful   degree  of   skill.      They  made   no  false  strokes. 

One  reason  for  hewing  may  have  been  found  in  the  curves 
usual  in  the  posts  and  even  the  girts  in  England,  traces  of  which, 
as  explained  under  the  word  "  post,"  can  be  found  in  the  work 
here  in   New  England. 

Let  us  return  to  our  New  Haven  law.  The  heaviest  hewn 
timber  is  measured  by  quite  a  different  standard  from  that  which 
we  now  use.  At  present  all  lumber  is  measured  by  the  board 
foot,  a  square  foot  one  inch  thick,  and  is  reduced  to  terms  of  this 
standard  no  matter  what  the  cross  section  may  be.  A  beam  twelve 
by  sixteen  inches  contains  sixteen  board  feet  for  every  foot  of  its 
length.  A  board  twelve  inches  by  one  inch  contains  one  board 
foot  for  every  foot  of  length.  In  old  New  Haven  we  have  the 
"  tun,"  a  measure  not  unfamiliar  in  Great  Britain  to-day,'  but 
utterly  forgotten  among  ourselves.  It  meant  forty  cubic  feet  of 
round   timber,  or  fifty -four  of  square.'-'     The  girt  measure  was  one- 


'  "  At  Dublin,  deals  are  sold  by  the  London  or  Dublin  standard  of  120,  12  x  g  .\  3  ;  square  timber 
by  the  ton  of  40  feet,  string  measurement."     Gvvilt,  Eiicyc/opirJia  of  Arcliitcctiire,  p.  504. 
*  Imperial  Dictionary. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  205 

quarter  of  the  circumference  of  the  log,  which  was  reckoned  as 
the  side  of  the  square  beam  which  could  be  cut  from  the  trunk.' 

We  will  now  turn  our  attention  to  the  losf  with  a  kerf  hewn 
off  on  each  of  its  two  sides,  and  follow  the  process  of  converting 
it  into  boards.  This  was  done  by  placing  the  stick  over  the  saw- 
pit  in  which  one  man,  the  pitman,  stood  and  moved  one  end  of 
the  "  whipsaw,"  a  two-handed  affair  exactly  like  that  used  for 
cross -cutting,  except  that,  as  it  had  to  be  a  splitting  or  ripping 
saw,  as  carpenters  call  it,  its  teeth  had  more  "  hook,"  that  is,  were 
bent  forward  more  than  those  of  the  cross-cut  saw.  This  differ- 
ence in  the  teeth  can  be  readily  seen  in  the  smaller  handsaws 
which  now  serve  similar  purposes.'  Above  the  log  stood  the  top- 
sawyer,  whose  name  has  passed  into  a  by -word,  and  he  managed 
the  upper  end  of  the  heavy  tool  with  which  the  two  worked.  The 
other  tools  needed  were  a  wedge  to  put  in  the  end  of  the  cut  so 
that  it  should  not  bind  the  saw,  as,  on  account  of  its  length,  it 
was  apt  to  do,  and  hooks  to  secure  the  log,  with  rollers  and  crow- 
bars wherewith  to  move  it. 

All  this  is  quaintly  set  forth  in  the  old  law,  which  ordains  the 
wages  of  the  laborers  and  the  price  they  may  ask  as  follows : 

"Sawing  by  the  hundred  not  above  4'  6''  for  boards.  5'  for 
planks.  5'  6"^  for  slitworke  and  to  be  payd  for  no  more  than  they 
cutt  full  and  true  measure.  If  by  the  dayes  worke,  the  top  man 
or  he  that  guides  the  worke  and  phaps  findes  the  tooles,  not 
above  2^  6'^  a  day  in  som',  and  the  pitt  ma,  and  he  whose  skill 
and   charge   is   lesse,    not   above    2',   and   a  proportionable   in   winter 


'  Gwilt,  Eneyclopccdia  of  Architecture,  p.  1203. 

'  That  is,  splitting  and  cutting.     A  whipsaw  belonged  to  Gov.  Eaton.     See  Appendi.\  I. 


206  EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES. 

as  before.  If  they  be  equall  in  skill  and  charge,  then  to  agree  or 
divide  the  4'  6''  betwixt  them." ' 

Boards,  we  see  here,  are  measured  by  the  hundred  ;  not  the 
hundred  of  square  or  board  feet,  but  of  boards,  and  probably  "six 
score "  went  to  the  hundred  at  that.  This  was  the  same  standard 
as  that  used  in   Hartford. 

These  boards  were  an  inch  or  an  inch  and  a  quarter  thick. 
Slit  work  meant  boards  half  an  inch  thick,  as  at  present  in  Eng- 
land.'    Plank  were,  as  now  in  this  country,  two  inches  thick. 

In  New  Haven  slit  work  is  more  costly  than  plank,  while  in 
Hartford  it  was  of  the  same  expense.  We  need  not  wonder,  for 
the  extra  labor,  at  two-and-sixpence  a  day  in  the  old  saw-pit, 
which  the  thinner  "slit"  board  required,  with  its  three  cuts  of 
the  heavy  whipsaw  to  the  one  needed  for  the  plank,  fully  offset 
the  difference  in  thickness  of  wood. 

It  is  evident  that  all  kinds  of  timber  were  sold  in  the  woods 
to  be  hauled  to  the  building  by  the  carpenter  or  the  owner,  accord- 
ing as  either  was  bound  to  furnish  the  materials.^  The  old  order 
closes  with  a  list  of  the  prices  of  the  various  classes  of  sawn 
lumber  in  the  woods  and  "  in  the  towne." 

"  Inch  bords  to  be  sould  in  the  woods  nott  above  5^*  g""  ^ 
hundred. 

halfe  inch  boards  in  the  woods  not  above  5 — 2  p   100. 

2  inch  planke  in  the  woods  not  above  7 — o  p   100. 


^  New  Haven  Col.  Rec,  I,  p.  36. 

'Gwilt,  Encyclopadia,  p.  1 159.  See  the  definition  of  deal,  board,  and  plank,  at  this  same  refer- 
ence. 

'In  New  London  we  find  the  town  contracting  with  John  Elderkin,  August  29,  1651,  to  build 
a  meeting-house  for  which  they  were  to  "  cary  the  tymber  to  the  place  and  find  nales."  Miss 
Caulkins,  History,  p.  108.  Sawing  timber,  boards,  and  planks,  mentioned  February  25,  1659 -60. 
Miss  Caulkins,  History,  p.  93. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  207 

inch  boards  sould  in  the  towne  not  above  7 — 9  \>   100. 
halfe  inch  boards  in  the  towne,  nott  above  6 — 2    p    100. 
2  inch  planke  in   the  towne  not  above   11 — o  p    100. 
Sawen  timber  6  inches  broad  and  three  inches  thicke  )  |   far'' 
in  the  woods  running  measure  not  above  J  p  foote 

in  the  towne  not  above   i''  f?  foote. 
Sawne  timber  S  inches  square  running  measure  in  |  P''  ? 

> 

the  woods  not  above  )  ^  foote. 

in  the  towne  not  above  2''  f^  foote." 

The  first  saw-mill  in  the  present  limits  of  Connecticut  was 
probably  that  of  William  Goodwin,  which  must  have  been  set  up 
some  time  before  we  hear  of  it,  for  the  court,  on  October  3, 
1654,  gave  him  liberty  "to  use  timber  from  waste  land  to  keep 
the  saw  mill  at  work."  * 

Governor  Winthrop,  however,  had  received  from  the  General 
Court,  September  8,  1653,  liberty  to  find  a  place  for  a  saw -mill, 
provided  it  "  do  not  prejudice  plantations  or  farms  already  laid 
out."^  It  is  probable  that  this  surveillance  exercised  by  the  court 
over  so  private  an  enterprise  as  a  saw- mill  arose  from  the  fear 
that  all  the  good  timber  would  be  cut  off  and  exported,  a  fear 
which  finds  expression  more  than  once  in  the  acts  of  the  Hart- 
ford town  councils,  as  well  as  in  this  of  the  General  Court.''  It 
may  be,  therefore,  that  his  saw-mill  was  the  earliest;  and  again, 
some  nameless  timber  merchant  may  have  been  the  pioneer  in 
sawing  by  water  power.  A  town  vote  in  Hartford,  December  27, 
1686,   speaks   of    "the   Sawmills    on    the   west   Side    of    Connecticut 

'  Conn    Col.  AVc,  I,  p.  262. 

'  Same,  p.  246. 

'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  ColUclioiis,  VI,  pp.  iSS,  221. 


208 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     MOUSES. 


riuor  within  this  Towne  Ship,"'  implying  quite  a  number  of  them. 
Liberty  was  given  to  establish  such  a  mill  in    Hartford  in    1696.^ 

The  method  of  sawing  boards,  whether  by  hand  or  by  mill, 
which  we  have  been  describing,  consists,  as  A  in  Figure  94  will 
show,  in  a  series  of  parallel  cuts  from  the  top  to  the  bottom  of 
the  log,  as  the  latter  is  moved  sidewise  upon  its  supports.  This 
does  well  enough  for  common  boards,  and  in  oak  or  soft  pine 
would  be  respectable  for  flooring.  It  was,  no  doubt,  the  common 
way  of  sawing,  as  it  is  to-day.  But  it  produces  mainly  what  are 
called    "  slashway "    boards,   and    can    not   be    relied    on    where   first- 


FIGURE  94. 

class  flooring  or  fine  boards  for  cabinet  or  joiner  work  are  re- 
quired. The  reason  of  this  will  be  apparent  on  a  little  study  of 
Figure  94.  At  A  we  see  that  the  cut  of  the  saw  crosses  the 
annual  rings  at  a  constantly  varying  angle.  It  is  at  right  angles 
to  them  only  at  the  middle  of  the  log.  At  the  side,  in  a  large 
stick,  it  would  be  nearly  parallel  with  them.  The  result  of  this, 
familiar  to  every  one  who  has  endured  that  curse  of  housekeepers. 


'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  CoUeclions,  VI,  p.  221. 
■'  The  same,  p.  247. 
"  Laid  out  to  Sec.  Allyn,  Mar.  iijtii,   1672-3,  a  necic  of  land  abutting  on  the  Saw -Mill  River, 
commonly  called   Iloccanum   River,  towards  the  south  and  towards  the  east  "  &c.      Conn.   Col.  Rcc, 
II,  p.  17S. 

This  was  granted  for  a  saw -mill  May  11,  1671.      IbiJ,  p.  147, 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  209 

a  slashway  liard  pine  floor,  is  sliown  at  B  in  tlie  same  figure. 
Here  we  have  the  curving  layers  plainly  marked,  while  in  C,  sup- 
posed to  be  the  board  from  the  center  of  the  log,  we  have  the 
even  grain.  Now  the  even  grain  makes  the  better  board  by  far. 
The  curved -grain  board  will  splinter  with  wear,  like  the  aforesaid 
floor;  and  further,  since  this  splintering  is  of  no  account  in  oak, 
it  will  curl  and  warp  in  the  direction  of  the  rings,  that  is,  it  will 
tend  to  become  more  and  more  curved,  as  in  D.  For  this  reason 
all  first-class  flooring,  and  all  wood  for  fine  work,  is  sawn  as  nearly 
as  possible  on  the  radii  of  the  log,  as  in  E,  so  that  each  board 
shall  be  like  the  center  one,  B,  of  the  other  method.  Wood  thus 
sawn  is  called  "quartered"  in  oak,  and  "grainway"  or  "rift"  in  hard 
pine  or  other  woods.  The  structure  of  oak,  in  which  there  are 
medullary  rays  running  out  like  radii  of  the  circle  from  the  heart 
of  the  tree  to  its  bark,  lends  a  peculiar  beauty  to  this  method  of 
sawing,  for  the  saw  runs  parallel  to  these  rays,  or  cuts  them  at  a 
low  angle,  and  thereby  produces  the  beautiful  "silver  grain,"  as  it 
is  called,  of  quartered  oak. 

All  this  was  well  known  to  the  mediasval  joiners,'  and  had 
been  handed  down  to  our  forefathers.  Once  in  a  while  we  meet 
a  piece  of  framing  timber,  always  small,  which  is  beautifully  quar- 
tered, and  which  makes  us  suspect  that  we  have  found  a  specimen 
of  that  sort  of  cuttino-.  It  mav  be  that  we  have  onlv  run  across 
the  center-piece  of  the  slashway  process,  which,  of  course,  was  cut 
on  the  radius.  Still,  from  the  size,  it  may  be  that  it  was  of  the 
other  kind.  The  quartering  was  more  difficult  to  saw,  as  will  be 
evident  from  the  figure,  so  that,  among  the  mediccval  men,  and 
no  doubt  among  our  old  craftsmen,  the  log,  after  two  saw  cuts  on 


'  Viollet-Ie-duc,  Diilioiiiiaire  raisonni  dii  mobilier  francais.  'rome.  VI,  pp.  346,  347,  note.     Gwilt, 
Eiicychipadui  of  Archilcclure.  p.  505. 


210  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

the  diameters  at  right  angles,  was  split  up  on  the  radial  lines,'  or 
was  "  rived,"  to  use  their  old  word  which  still  survives  in  our 
"rift"  as  a  name  for  the  kind  of  board  which  is  sawed  in  that 
radial  fashion.  Old  Evelyn,  in  his  Syha,  says:  "Timber  which  is 
cleft  is  nothing  so  obno.xious  to  reft  and  cleave  as  what  is  hewn  ; 
nor  that  which  is  squared  as  what  is  round."-  It  is  probable  that 
most  of  the  oak  from  which  our  old  joiners  wrought  chests,  livery 
cupboards,  and  the  various  kinds  of  tables  was,  at  least  in  the 
smaller  sizes,  of  this  split  manner  of  working.  The  heavy  top, 
in  several  boards  two  inches  thick,  which  covers  the  mighty  draw 
table  now  owned  by  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society,  a  table 
which  Dr.  L)on  saw  strong  grounds  for  assigning  to  the  house- 
hold furnishing  of  Governor  Winthrop,''  is  of  this  quartered  oak. 

The    Frame. 

Sills.  The  sill  or  groundsill  as  it  was  often  called  —  "grund- 
sell  "'  it  was  sometimes  spelt  —  was  the  heavy  timber  which  lay 
immediately  upon  the  underpinning  and  into  which  were  framed 
the  posts  and  studs  of  the  wall,  in  the  oldest  examples,  as  in 
the  Baldwin  house,  Branford,  and  the  Hempstead  house.  New 
London,  it  projects  into  the  room.  Later  on  it  is  below  the 
floor  as  it  is  now-a-dajs.  In  the  latter  case  the  joists  of  the  first 
floor  are  framed  into   it ;    in   the   former  these  joists   are   built  into 


'  VioUet-le-duc.   Diclionnaire  raisonn/  du   mobilier  fraitfais.  Tome,  \'I,   pp.   346,    347,   note. 
Gwilt,  Encyclopedia  of  Architecture,  p.  634. 

-Gwilt,  Encyclopadia  of  Architecture,  p.  505.     Evelyn's  Silva,  with  notes  hy  Jno.  Hunter,  Lon- 
don, 1S25,  voL  11,  p.  233. 

'Dr.   I.  W.   Lyon,   Colonial  Furniture  in  N^ew  England,  pp.   195,   ig6,   218.     Dr.   Lyon  thinks 
this  table  was  made  in  England, 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  211 

the   stone  wall,   and   the   sill    runs   along   the   top   of    the    wall    inde- 
pendently of  them,  as  in   Figure  S3. 

In  size  the  sill  is  eight  or  nine  inches  square.  Those  in  the 
Painter  house  and  the  HoUister  house,  both  of  the  second  period, 
are  nine  by  nine.  That  in  the  Gleason,  c.  1650-60,  is  eight  by 
eight.  That  in  the  older  part  of  the  Hempstead  house,  1647,  is 
very  nearly  seven  by  *seven.  Its  exact  size  can  only  be  estimated, 
as  it  is  partly  covered,  though  it  does  appear  in  the  room. 

Posts.  In  the  house  of  the  first  period,  or  of  any  period  where 
there  were  but  two  rooms  and  no  lean-to,  there  were  eight  posts, 
one  at  each  corner,  one  at  each  side  of  the  entry  on  the  front, 
and  one  at  each  side  of  the  chimney  on  the  rear.  When  the 
lean-to  was  added  four  more  posts,  corresponding  in  position  to 
the  four  in  the  back  wall,  were  added  to  the  number.  After  the 
"upright"  or  two-story  houses  on  the  lean-to  plan  came  into 
vogue  in  the  third  period  there  was,  in  some  instances,  notably 
the  Mea;s:att  house,  and  one  side  of  the  Webb  house,  Wethers- 
field,  as  also  the  Sheldon  house,  Hartford,  a  doing  away  with  the 
intermediate  posts  on  the  end  and  in  the  middle  of  the  house,  the 
line  of  posts,  that  is,  which  represented  the  back  wall  in  the  orig- 
inal houses.  The  majority  of  the  wide  two -story  dwellings,  how- 
ever, are  like  the  Kinsman  house,  Versailles,  and  the  Belden-Butler 
house,  Wethersfield,  in  that  they  retain  the  full  number  of  twelve 
posts. 

The  posts  are  tenoned  and  pinned,  or  simply  tenoned  into  the 
sills.  They  support  the  second  floor  by  means  of  the  girts  which 
are  mortised  into  them.  The  corner  posts  take  two  girts  each, 
the  intermediates  take  three.  Again  the  posts  carry  the  third 
floor  and  the  roof  by  means  of  the  plates  and  the  end  girts  which 


212 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


are  framed  upon  their  heads.  All  this,  as  well  as  the  number  and 
disposition  of  the  posts,  will  be  plainer  to  the  reader  if  he  will 
refer  to  the  framing  drawings  in  Figures  g6,  97,  98,  and  Plates  I 
to  VII. 

Let  us  now  proceed  to  anah-se  the  joints  we  have  enumerated, 
beginning  with  those  at  the  second -story  level.  We  shall  con- 
sider only  the  unbroken  posts  under  this  heading.  Those  which 
are  complicated  with  the  overhang  we  will  consider  under  that 
division.     A    plain    corner    post,    then,   with    its   end    girt    and    back 

girt,  would  be  what  is 
shown  at  A  in  Figure  95. 
The  relation  of  end  and 
front  girt  would  be  the 
same.  In  the  upper  part 
of  Plate  I  is  seen  the  east 
side  of  the  intermediate 
post  at  the  rear  of  the 
Gleason  house  at  the  rear 
of  the  chimney,  post  "  D " 
on  the  plan  of  that  house. 
It  will  be  noted  that  each 
of  these  posts  in  each  story 
is  about  three  inches  deeper 
at  the  top  than  at  the  bottom.  This  does  not  occur  in  Rhode 
Island  work,  and  not  always  in  Connecticut,  but  it  is  very  common, 
almost  common  enough  to  be  called  the  rule.  It  will  be  interesting 
to  compare  this  gradual  increase  with  the  sharp  bracket  form  in  the 
Roger  Williams  house  in  Salem.  The  bracket  is  sometimes  used  in 
the  first  story  in  Connecticut,  where  the  post  is  only  one  story  high, 
as  in  lean-tos.  It  is  generally  a  mark,  where  used,  of  the  top  of  the 
post. 


HGUKt     95. 


ANAL'DI5<TJ<5|kr5 

R_Arci  I.  *'  ^    Ik  ^ 

^"fer'Aifi  r,X.Y*  fRAMI^C  DLTAID  -  GllATn  TOE! 4 


1 


214 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


The  skill  of  the  old  carpenter  is  most  apparent  where  it  was 
tested  most  severely,  and  this,  outside  the  overhangs,  occurred  at 
the  top  of  the  post,  where  the  third -story  girts  met  the  plate. 
The  strange-looking  and  complicated  but  really  brilliant  joints' 
are  better  explained  in  the  plates,  which  give  the  framing  details 
of  the  several  different  houses,  than  by  many  pages  of  printed 
description.     The  corner  post  is  apt  to  be  the  most  complicated,  as 


/iKOATTllou^E: 


Figure  96. 


post  iT  in  the  Gleason  house.  A  peculiarity  here  is  the  cutting 
down  of  the  head  of  the  post  to  form  a  seat  for  each  beam,  leav- 
ing thereby  a  square  projection  in  the  angle.  This  occurs  in 
Rhode  Island  and  in  some  Massachusetts  work,  but  it  is  not  com- 
mon   in    Connecticut.     We   find   it   in   the   posts   of    Winthrop's    mill 


'  Our  sketches  of  these  joints  are  more  numerous  th.in  of  any  others,  for  not  only  are  they  more 
interesting  but  nearly  always  more  accessible. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  215 

at  New  London,  which  are  the  only  parts  of  that  structure  dating 
back  to  the  original  settlement. 

The  BRACES  which  secure  the  angles  between  the  posts  and 
the  sills,  girts,  or  plates,  are  shown  in  the  detailed  sketches  or 
in  the  perspectives  of  the  frames.  The  object  of  them  is  to  keep 
the  corner  square.  This  they  do  not  always  succeed  in  doing,  to 
judge  by  the  present  condition  of  the  houses.  Sometimes  many 
of  them  are  used,  sometimes  few.  The  Benjamin  house  has  a 
great  number.  Where  few  are  used  they  are  sometimes  long,  and 
are  run  from  the  post  down  to  the  girt  in  the  second-story  wall, 
as  in  the  Gleason  and  the  Patterson  house,  instead  of  from  the 
post  up  to  the  plate  in  the  usual  manner.  This  method  may  be  of 
Kentish  origin,  for  it  occurs  in  old  half- timber  work  in  that  count}-. 
A  brace  under  a  girt  inside  the  house,  that  is,  not  in  the  outer 
wall,  occurs  in  the  Sheldon  house,   Hartford. 

The  second-story  girts  are  the  heavy  timbers  framed  between  the 
posts  at  the  level  of  the  second  floor.  The  end  girt,  as  its  name 
implies,  runs  from  one  corner  post  to  the  other — or  from  corner 
post  to  intermediate  where  the  house  is  two  rooms  deep  —  at  one 
end  or  the  other  of  the  building.  The  chimney  girt  spans  the 
hall  or  the  parlor  and  continues  its  way  across  the  kitchen  at  the 
back  also  where  tliat  room  exists,  whether  in  a  lean-to  or  in  a  full 
two-story  house,  as  the  plans  and  the  perspectives  of  the  framing  in 
Figures  96,  97,  98,  will  explain.  In  souic  cases,  as  in  the  Meggatt, 
the  Sheldon,  and  in  one  side  of  the  Webb  house,  the  end  girt 
and  the  chimney  girt  run  from  corner  to  corner,  or  from  inter- 
mediate post  on  the  front  to  intermediate  on  the  back,  with  no 
post  at  the  line  of  the  rear  wall  of  hall  or  parlor. 

The  FRONT  girt,  in  tliree  sections,  spans  the  intervals  between 
the  four  posts   on    the    front.     Where   there   is    a  framed    overhang 


216 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


there  are  two  of  these  front  girts  side  by  side,  as  will   be  explained 
more  in  detail   when  we  consider  the  overhangs. 

The    HACK    GIRT    traverses    the    back    wall    of    the    house    in    the 


Fraai 
3cHcnf  2/(DA/ 

3'hi:ldo/iH' 

Tii^ST  Floor,  "amttld 

3CAL[ 

I  IJ.>IJM  lUll^m  UMMIU 


Figure  97. 


same  three  sections  which  we  noted  in  the  case  of  the  front  girt. 
In  lean-to  houses  there  is  really  no  back  girt,  for  a  plate  is  put 
into   the   rear   wall   to   carry   the   rafters   and  joists,   and    the  former 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


21' 


back  gilt,  which  still  retains  its  ])lace  in  the  framing,  see  Figure 
65,  becomes  a  sort  of  second  summer.  This  is  actually  the  case 
in  those  houses  alrcach'  mentioned,  where  the  end  ";irt  and  the 
chimney  girt  run  across  the  house  with  no  posts  except  at  the 
ends  of  them.  Then  these  girts  support  both  the  main  summer 
and  the  second  summer  —  the  old  back  girt — just  as  if  there  were 
two  summers   in    the   width   of    the   house.     For   this   late   and   rare 


Swmt 
Caldwcll  m°uje 

CfLLAt,rLOOR.5  A/vr> 
CHinACYi  QfllTTCD. 


Figure  98. 


manner  we  refer  the  reader  to  the  framing  of  the  Sheldon  house 
in  I'igure  97,  and  to  that  of  the  Mej^gatt  house  in  Figure  96. 
The  usual  fashion  he  will  find  illustrated  in  Figure  98,  which  sets 
forth  the  framing  of  the  Caldwell  house  in  Guilford.  Many  of 
the  sections  given  with  the  descriptions  of  the  houses  will  explain 
the  relation  between  the  lean-to  plate  and  the  original  back  girt, 
a  relation  the  same  whether  the  lean-to  is  original  or  an  addition. 
It  is  in  order  to  receive  these  second -story  girts  that  the  posts 


I  ^^lOfC]-         Tf^m  (wm)  Wall 
HALlCriAnBtL- 


OF 


Inm  kern  Sim 


WHITMA/1  frV3C 


N'KTfl 


rK<m  V//1LL 


Dit4  I 


K 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT    HOUSES.  219 

are  made  larger  at  the  joint  with  the  girt  than  they  are  at  the 
sill  line.  The  chimney  girts  and  the  end  girts  which,  except  in 
the  Hempstead  house,  have  to  carry  the  summer,  are,  except  in 
that  instance,  larger  than  the  other.  The  average  size  of  them 
is  from  6  or  8  by  9  to  8  by  1 2  or  even  14^2,  and  9  by  14;  not 
quite  so  deep,  it  will  be  seen,  as  in  Rhode  Island,  where  8  by  16 
for  an  end  girt  is  not  unknown,  but  where  9  inches  in  width 
would  be  ver)^  strange.  It  is  to  provide  a  seat  for  these  heavier 
girts  that  the  special  flare  of  the  post  is  hewn  out,  and,  except  in 
one  case  —  the  second  story  of  the  Baldwin  house  —  this  flare  is 
always  turned  in  the  direction  of  the  length  of  these  girts.  In 
this  instance  the  front  and  back  girts,  which  elsewhere,  because 
of  their  small  size  —  indeed  they  are  only  of  ordinary  size  here 
—  run  square  into  the  flat  side  of  the  post,  have  the  flare  under 
them  instead  of  under  the  end  and  chimney  girts. 

All  this  somewhat  lengthy  explanation  will  be  much  clearer  if 
the  reader  will  consult  the  drawings  of  the  different  girts,  given, 
with  those  of  the  posts  to  which   they  belong,  in   Plates   I  to  VII. 

The  tops  of  all  the  girts  are  kept  flush,  that  is,  at  the  same 
level.  Flush  with  them  are  the  tops  of  the  floor  joists,  which 
are  framed  into  the  front  and  back  girts  and  into  the  summer. 
These,  in  the  second  story,  of  which  we  are  speaking,  and  in  the 
third,  are  almost  always  very  small  compared  with  those  used 
now-a-days.  They  ^ire  of  oak — except,  perhaps,  in  the  Moore 
house,  where  all  the  framing  visible  is  of  hard  pine  —  and  are 
about  2Y1  inches  by  5.  That  is  the  exact  size  of  them  in  the 
Patterson  house,  where  they  are  spaced  21  inches  on  centers,  and 
where  their  edijes  are  beaded. 

The  joists  in  the  first  floor  are  often  very  rough,  but  this  is 
where    the    floor    has    been    renewed.     In    the    Baldwin    house    they 


HALLCHAII^rR  M 


RPAT 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  221 

are  logs  square  only  on  the  upper  sides.  They  are  not  framed 
into  the  sills,  but  are  built  into  the  wall,  as  we  have  already  ex- 
plained. They  span  the  whole  width  of  the  cellar,  as  is  the  case 
also  where,  as  in  the  Painter  liouse  and  the  HoUister  house,  the 
joists  are  square  hewn.  In  these  houses  the  common  custom  of 
laying  the  joists  of  the  first  floor  flatwise  is  followed.  In  one 
house  only  which  we  have  examined,  the  Gleason  at  F"armington, 
is  the  first  floor  framed  exactly  as  were  the  upper  floors.  This  is 
no  doubt  the  oldest  way  in  those  houses  where  the  sill  was  used 
to  carry  the  joists.  The  single -span  system  was  descended  from 
the  older  arranoement  seen  in  the  Baldwin  house,  the  sill  over 
the  joists,  that  is  to  say,  and  independent  of  them,  just  as  this 
old  scheme  is,  in  its  turn,  descended  from  the  still  more  ancient 
disposition  where  there  was  no  cellar  and  no  floor  but  the  pounded 
earth,  or  beaten  clay  and  lime,  or  perhaps  wooden  blocks,  and 
where,  consequently,  no  floor  joists  were  needed. 

The  end  girt  appears  in  the  third  story.  It  calls  for  no  special 
remark  except  that,  in  some  cases  where  there  w'as  a  gable  over- 
hang, it  was  "  cambered,"  that  is,  made  deeper  in  the  center  than 
at  the  ends.  The  Gleason  furnishes  an  example  of  this,  where 
the  end  girt  at  the  center  is  9  by  14'i;  inches.  The  form  comes 
down  from  the  half-timber  construction  of  the  old  country  where 
the  cambering  showed  on  the  outside,  and  where  it  still  adds  to 
the  picturesqueness  of  many  a  plastered  gable. 

The  cliimney  girt  also  re -appears  in  the  third  floor,  and,  in 
the  Benjamin  house,  Milford.  P^igure  80,  it  runs  across  the  head 
of  the  post  at  the  back  of  the  chimney  till  it  meets  the  rafter 
of  the  main  and  the  lean-to  roof,  which  is  one  timber,  and  thus 
forms  itself  into  a  tie-beam.  This  framing  we  have  met  in  the 
present  territory  of   Connecticut   only   in   this   house.       It  does    not 


LATEl 


(flEWEE_  p/^T  or  riov^rj 


North  Py^i  \n  Hall 

(old    PAR.T  or  H^vif-) 


MP3TEAD 


J°YTH  P°iTi/M  Hall  Cham  BCK- 


3.W.fo&/ICR_ 


HARTrORD. 


EARLY     CONNFXTICUT     HOUSES.  223 

occur  in  Hartford,  but,  as  the  only  three  examples  of  the  original 
lean-to  house  now  known  in  the  old  Providence  Plantations  are 
built   in   that  way,   it  was   once,   no  doubt,   more  common. 

The  places  of  the  front  girt  and  the  back  girt  at  the  third 
floor  level  were  taken  by  the  front  and  back  plates.  These  are 
the  beams  which  rest  on  the  tops  of  the  posts  and  carry  the 
rafters  and  the  joists  of  the  third  floor.  In  a  story -and -a- half 
house  they  have  only  to  carry  the  rafters.  The  plates  meet  the 
end  girts  on  the  corner  posts  and  the  chimney  girts  on  the  inter- 
mediates—  see  the  sections  and  the  perspectives  of  framing  in 
Figures  96,  97,  and  98,  and  it  is  to  accommodate  both  sticks 
without  weakening  the  joints  that  the  heads  of  the  posts  are  flared 
and  bracketed,  even  when  they  are  not  so  at  the  second  floor, 
and  that  such  wonderful  feats  of  mortise -and -tenon  work  are  ac- 
complished as  are  set  forth  in  the  details  of  plates   I   to  VI. 

In  the  two-story  house  two  rooms  deep  the  back  plate,  that  is, 
the  plate  which  would  be  over  the  back  wall  of  the  house  if  it 
were  only  one  room  deep,  becomes  a  sort  of  second  summer  like 
the  back  girt  in   the  second  floor  of  a  house  of  the  same  kind. 

In  a  lean-to  house,  where  the  lean-to  is  part  of  the  original 
construction,  the  back  plate — or  what  would  be  the  back  plate  if  the 
house  were  one  room  deep  —  is  still  used  as  a  plate  which  carries 
the  feet  of  the  upper  rafters  and  the  heads  of  the  rafters  of  the 
lean-to,  for  these  are  not  in  one  stick.  The  feet  of  the  lean-to 
rafters  rest  on  the  plate  in  the  back  wall  of  the  lean-to  at  the 
level  of  the  second  floor.  The  Benjamin  house  is  an  exception 
to  this.  Here  the  rafters  are  in  one  piece  of  timber,  and  the  old 
back  plate  does  act  like  a  second  summer  in  the  garret  floor,  for 
it  carries  the  ends  of  the  joists  which  run  over  it  to  meet  the 
rafters,  as  the  section  of  the  house  in   Figure  So  will  explain. 


224  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

The  cuts  for  the  rafters,  wliich  will  be  explained  with  those 
tinibers,  and  the  notches  for  the  third -story  floor  joists  are  ranged, 
the  former  on  the  front,  the  latter  on  the  back,  or  inside,  of  the 
plate.  It  is  not  uncommon  for  the  joists,  as  in  the  Dorus  Bar- 
nard and  the  Patterson  house,  to  rest  on  the  plate  instead  of 
being  framed  into  it  with  their  tops  flush  with  its  top. 

The  SUMMER  is  the  great  beam  which  traverses  the  rooms  in 
both  stories  from  chimney  girt  to  end  girt,  and  thus  parallel  with 
the  front  wall  of  the  house.  The  word,  as  we  explained  in  "  Early 
Rhode  Island  Houses,"  comes  down  from  the  Latin  "sagmarius," 
a  pack-horse,  through  the  Norman  French  "sommier."  It  is  still 
in  use  in  Connecticut,  as  elsew'here  in  New  England,  and  appears 
often  in  the  combination  "summer  tree,"  in  which  tree,  in  the 
sense  of  beam,  has  as  right  Saxon  a  flavor  as  the  other  word  has 
Norman. 

Iud<£e  Sewall,  in  his  diary,  uses  the  word  when  he  records  the 
raising  of  his  brother's  house.' 

The  most  interesting  literary  evidence  for  the  word,  however, 
occurs  in  Increase  Mather's  Illustrious  Providences.  The  author 
is  recounting  a  miraculous  escape  from  a  powder  ex'plosion  at 
Windsor.      He  says : 

"John  Bissell,  on  a  morning,  about  break  of  day,  taking  nails 
out  of  a  great  barrel,  wherein  was  a  considerable  quantity  of  gun- 
powder and  bullets,  having  a  candle  in  his  hand,  the  powder  took 
fire,  Thomas  Bissell  was  then  putting  on  his  clothes,  standing  by 
a  window,  which  though  well -fastened,  was  by  the  force  of  the 
powder  carried  away  at  least  four  rods;  the  partition -wall  from 
another  room   was  broken  in  pieces;    the  roof  of  the  house  opened 

'Samuel  Sewall's  Vidiy.     .Mass.  Hist.  Soc. ,  Collections,  Ft  flit  Scries,  vol.  V.  p.  g. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  225 

and  slipt  off  the  plates  about  five  feet  down ;  also  the  great  girt 
of  the  house  at  one  end  [the  end  girt]  broke  out  so  far  that  it 
drew  from  the  summer  to  the  end  most  of  its  tenant."' 

To  the  rule  that  the  summer  should  run  parallel  to  the  front 
there  is  one  exception  and,  so  far  as  we  are  aware,  only  one.  In 
the  older  half  of  the  Hempstead  house  at  New  London  the  sum- 
mer runs  from  back  girt  to  front  girt,  parallel  to  the  end  of  the 
house,  and  there  is  a  post  under  it  in  the  back  wall,-  and  prob- 
ably in  the  front  wall  as  well,  though  it  is  covered.  This  cross- 
wise direction,  so  to  speak,  of  the  summer  is  very  common  in 
Massachusetts  Bay.  Something  like  it  does  occur  in  the  north 
end  of  the  Webb  house,  and  of  the  Grant  house,  but  even  in 
these  instances,  though  the  summer  runs  parallel  to  the  end  of 
the  house,  it  nevertheless  runs  into  the  chimney  girt.  The  sum- 
mer in  the  south  end  of  each  of  these  houses,  while  it  runs 
parallel  to  the  front,  has  really  far  more  of  the  look  of  Massa- 
chusetts work,  as  it  runs  parallel  to  the  front  of  the  fireplace 
also. 

Of  other  peculiar  ways  of  placing  the  summer  only  two  appear. 
In  the  newer  half  of  the  Hempstead  house  there  are  two  summers 
in  the  narrow  space  where  we  should  e.xpect  only  one  ;  and  neither 
of  these  was  ever  a  back  girt.  In  the  Moore  house  at  Windsor 
we  find  that  rare  disposition,  the  crossed  summers,  the  only  in- 
stance of  it  in  Connecticut.  The  diagonal  summer  was  used  in 
Surrey,  but  we  have  never  seen  it  in   New  England. 


'  Rev.  Increase  Mather,  An  Essay  for  the  Recoriling  of  Illustrious  Providences.  Boston,  16S4 
Reprinted  with  introduction  by  George  Offer,  London,  1856.  Page  27  of  this  reprint.  The  pas- 
sage is  quoted  by  Stiles,  Ancient    IVindsor,  I,  p.  187. 

•  For  a  post  with  the  summer  framed  into  it  in  the  Plymouth  colony  in   1658.  see  Mather's  work, 

p.  52. 


Po5T/n  S.W.  C°^f^ 

SfEAl  Fe.OA 

LEA/IP  CHAM E.C^ 


EirYATP/i  tA 


fRA/ll/tGDETMU 

0LL13TCRH°- 

5°  GIA3T0/IBWY 


f^m\m  DriAiD 
PAI/1TKffY)r 


228 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


The  size  of  the  beam  varies.  It  was  often  laid  flatwise.  In 
the  third  floor  of  the  Dorus  Barnard  house  it  is  12  by  12.  That 
in  the  second  floor  of  the  Whiting,  which  is  not  cased,  is  12 '4 
wide.  The  main  summer  in  the  Moore  house  is  13^2  inches  wide, 
while  the  cross  summer  is  only  10.  Both  these  timbers  are  of 
hard  pine.  In  the  parlor  chamber  of  the  John  Barnard  house 
the  original  summer  carrying  the  third  floor  had  been  taken  out 
and   replaced    by   a   new    stick    which    was    11    by    12    and    yet   was 


CHArir[^-f 


Figure  gg— Chamfers. 


smaller  than  the  other.  The  beam  left  in  the  girt  traces  of  what 
looked  like  a  tusk  mortise  under  the  dovetail,  though  we  have 
never  seen  this  joint  in  Connecticut  except  in  the  cambered  end 
girt  in  the  Gleason  house.  The  dovetail,  as  shown  in  Plate  I, 
seems  the  universal  mode  of  framing  the  two  sticks  together.  It 
is  a  very  fair  joint  and  forms  a  good  tie,  for  the  dovetail  is  not 
easily  pulled  out,  but  it  weakens  the  girt  more  than  the  tusk -and - 
tenon. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  229 

The  edges  of  the  summer,  as  of  all  the  heavy  timber,  were 
chamfered,  sometimes  with  a  plain  bevel,  sometimes  with  a  filleted 
quarter- round,  and  these  chamfers  were  finished  with  stops  which, 
many  of  them  very  quaint  and  full  of  mediaeval  spirit,  exhibit  the 
variety  shown   in    Figure  99. 

The  STUDS  are  the  small  vertical  timbers  which  are  tenoned 
at  the  bottom  into  the  sill  and  at  the  top  into  a  girt,  or  at  the 
bottom  into  a  girt,  and  at  the  top  into  a  girt  or  a  plate,  or  are 
used  to  fill  a  gable,  according  to  the  position  they  occupy.  The 
space  between  them  is  generally  filled  with  brick  or,  in  the  earlier 
examples,  with  the  clay  and  hay  which,  in  England,  it  was  their 
original  office  to  carry,  and  they  support  on  the  outside  the  clap- 
boards, on  the  inside  the  wainscoting  or  the  plastering  when  that 
comes  into  use.  '1  hey  are  set  fiatwise  and  vary  somewhat  in  size, 
but  are  generally  from  2  by  3  to  3  by  5.  They  were  framed  into 
the  other  beams  on  the  ground,  and  the  whole  side  wall  raised  at 
one  time.      On   the  ends   they  had   to  be  put   in   afterward. 

The  RAFTERS  are  of  two  kinds,  principal  and  common.  In 
many  roofs,  especiall}'  in  the  Connecticut  colon}',  there  are  four 
pairs  of  quite  large  principal  rafters,  one  pair  over  each  girt. 
Each  pair  forms,  with  that  girt,  a  triangular  truss  in  which  there 
may  or  may  not  be  a  collar -beam  or  tie  between  the  rafters  just 
above  a  man's  head.  Between  one  pair  of  principals  and  the  next 
pair  PURLINS,  as  they  were  called,  were  framed  —  see  the  perspective 
of  framing  in  Figure  97;  and  these  purlins,  which  were  practically 
girders,  carried  the  smaller  common  rafters. 

In  other  cases,  especially  in  the  New  Haven  colony,  there  was 
a  large  number  of  principal  rafters  and  a  large  number  also  of 
purlins  spanning  the  short  spaces  between  them.  Here  the  board- 
ing was  vertical  on  the  purlins  and  there  were  no  common  rafters. 


230  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

This  scheme  appears,  curiously  enough,  in  the  Kinsman  house 
in  the  old  Norwich  settlement  —  this  house  has  also  the  creat 
width  of  entry  characteristic  of  New  Haven  —  and  occurs  as  far 
east  as  an  interesting  old  one -story,  single -room  house  in  Foster, 
Rhode  Island.  Beside  these  two  examples  we  have  seen  it  only 
in  the  New  Haven  jurisdiction,  though  the  influence  of  it  is  felt 
in  the  habit,  which  appeared  in  the  second  period  in  Hartford,  of 
leaving  out  the  collar-beams.  The  arrangement  is  illustrated  in 
Figure  98,  the  framing  of  the  Caldwell  house,  and  in  Plate  VI. 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  it  originated  in  thatching,  which 
prevailed  in  New  Haven  '  as  well  as  in  the  other  colonies,"  and 
which  may  have  lingered  a  long  time  in  that  somewhat  conserva- 
tive settlement. 

The  bundles  of  straw  or  coarse  salt  hay  of  which  the  thatch 
consisted  were  tied  with  rope  or  birch  withes  to  the  horizontal 
purlins  which  were  spaced  closer  than  they  were  after  boarding 
came  into  use.  Another  reason  for  the  close  spacing  of  the  raft- 
ers so  common  in  New  Haven  might  be  found  in  the  habit,  to 
be  noticed  later,  of  using  clapboards  for  roofing. 

The  feet  of  the  rafters  were  fastened  to  the  plate  with  pins, 
but  a  notch,  shown  in  Plate  V,  was  skillfully  used  to  relieve  the 
treenail.  The  end  of  the  rafter  projected  about  twelve  inches  be- 
yond the  frame,  as  the  drawing  shows  in  Plates  HI  and  V.  The 
roof  boarding  and  the  shingles  followed  the  projection  of  the  rafter, 
and   this   was   all    the   cornice   the   oldest   houses,   and    some   of    the 


'The  court  order  in  New  Haven,  June  ii,  1640,  regulated  the  wages  of  "A  skilfull  thatcher, 
working  dilh'gently."     A'e-ui  Haven   Colonial  Records,  I,  p    37. 

•  Increase  Mather,  in  recounting  an  escape  from  lightning  in  Northampton  in  1664,  mentions 
thatch.  Jllustrioiis  Proviilences,  edit,  cited,  p.  53.  .  For  a  reference  by  him  to  '"principal  rafter," 
see  the  same,  p.  52,  and  for  a  reference  to  a  rafter  as  a  "  spar,"  an  old  English  name,  see  the  same, 
p.  56,  where  the  gable  is  in  question. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  231 

later  ones,  possessed.  The  effect,  however,  was  very  good,  as  any 
one  can  see  who  visits  the  Patterson  house  before  it  goes  to 
pieces,  for  that  house  still  has  its  original  cornice  or  "jet." 

The  problem  of  supporting  the  new  cornice,  built  up  of  thin 
boards  in  imitation  of  one  of  the  "orders,"  was  met,  when  that 
cornice  came  into  fashion,  in  much  the  same  way  as  in  Rhode 
Island.  This  is  shown  in  F"igure  io6  and  in  Plate  \T.  The  appear- 
ance of  this  framing  in  the  Painter  house  in  1685,  and  possibly  in 
the  Hollister  some  years  earher,  shows  that  the  box  cornice,  in  a 
rudimentary  form,  is  very  old.  It  is  almost  the  first  sign  of  Jones 
and  Wren  that  we  find. 

Ridges  or  ridge-poles  occur  only  where  the  roof  is  of  hori- 
zontal purlins.  Then  the  purlin  at  the  peak  might  be  called  the 
ridge,  but  it  is  never  part  of  the  framing;  that  is,  the  rafters  are 
never  framed  into  it,'  they  are  always  halved  together  and  pinned, 
as  in    Hartford. 

The  OVERHANG.  We  do  not  b)^  this  word  generally  mean  the 
gable  overhang.  That  we  shall  treat  under  gable  in  its  separate 
place.  We  shall  speak  here  of  the  projection  of  the  second  story 
over  the  face  of  the   wall   in   the  first  story. 

This  occurs  principally  in  the  Connecticut  and  New  Haven 
settlements.  We  have  not  yet  seen  an  example  in  New  London, 
though  some  exist  in  Norwich.  It  was  once  common,  therefore, 
to  many  of  the  older  towns  of  the  present  State,  though,  no  doubt, 
more   in  vogue  in   the  two  original  colonies. 

There  are  among  overhangs  two  types  which  we  have  already 
named    the  framed   and    the    hciun.       They    seem    to    have    sprung 


'  This  occurs  in  very  late  work,  c.  1S20,  in  somhern   New   Hampshire,  in   Francestown,  among  or 
near  the  Scotch -Irish  settlements. 


232 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


from  tlie  different  traditions  of  the  two  older  jurisdictions.  The 
first  is  characteristic  of  Connecticut,  the  second  appears  to  have 
originated  in  New  Haven  and  to  have  spread  northward  into  the 
river  colonv.  A  third  form,  a  late  and  slio;ht  modification  of  the 
hewn  type,  prevails  in  both  settlements  and  in  some  of  the  later 
towns. 

In  Farmington,  as  the  reader  is  aware,  there  are  still  to  be 
seen  four  examples  of  the  heavy  framed  projection  on  the  front  of 
the  house,  and  two  other  instances  former)}'  existed  there.  Those 
which  remain  are  probably  the  survivors  of  a  once  numerous  class. 

In  Windsor  one  example  is  still 
standing,  while  another  was  pulled 
down  some  years  ago.  In  Hart- 
ford itself  there  are  now  no  framed 
overhangs,  and  however  numerous 
they    may    have    been    in    the    other 


river    towns — and    the    overhang   of 


Figure  ioo.— Overhang  Details. 


the  Sheldon  house,  Deerfield,  goes 
to  show  that  they  were  the  rule 
and  not  the  exception — there  are  now  none  of  them  left,  so  far 
as  we  can  discover,  beside  the  few  we  have  named.  The  six 
which,  only  a  few  years  ago,  stood  in  I-"armington,  are  an  extraor- 
dinary number  for  one  place.  We  know  of  no  other  town  in 
New  England  which  retains  so  many. 

These  overhantjs  on  the  front  of  the  houses  are  sometimes  ac- 
companied  by  another  at  each  end  which  varies  from  six  or  per- 
haps eight  inches,  as  in  the  Clark  house,  to  four  inches,  as  in 
the  Lewis  house,  now  a  part  of  the  Elm  Tree  Inn.  No  others 
of  the  houses  under  discussion  have  this  end  overhang. 

The  details  of  these  overhangs  are  shown  in   Figure  loo,  which 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


gives  that  of  the  Clark  house,  Farmington,  drawn  from  a  photo- 
graph of  the  house  taken  several  years  ago,  before  the  building 
was  destroyed.  The  same  fisjure  orives  that  of  the  Gleason  house, 
and  Figure  loi  contains  that  of  the  Whitman.  The  overhang  of 
the  Cowles  house,  which  resembles  that  of  the  Gleason,  will  be 
found  clearl}-  enough  e.xplained  in  Figure  13.  The  drops  under 
the  second -story  posts  —  hewn  out  of  the  posts  themselves  —  vary 
through  the  forms  which  the  drawings  show.  The  number  of  these 
curious  old  ornaments  preserved  in  the  neighborhood  of  Hartford, 
though  it  is  only  three,  is  very  remarkable : 
everywhere  else  they  have  been  sawn  off. 
Indeed,  it  is  a  question  whether  any  ever 
existed  in  the  Gleason  or  the  Cowles  house. 
Turned  drops  were  at  the  ends  of  the  posts 
in  the  Sueton  Grant  house.  Newport,  now 
unfortunately  destroyed,  but  they  looked  very 
much  like  restorations.  All  those  we  have 
shown  have  a  strong  flavor  of  the  Eliza- 
bethan and  Jacobean  England  to  which  they 
belong. 

Geometrical    drawings  of  certain   of   these 
overhangs,  including   that  of   the    Moore  house,   Windsor,   are  given 
in   Figure   102.      The   framing  is  carefully  e.xplained    in    Plate  VH. 

The  framed  overhang  did  not  survive  into  the  second  period. 
In  its  stead  we  find  the  hewn  overhang,  where  the  projection, 
which  is  thus  necessarily  small,  is  cut  out  of  the  solid  post.  This 
method  is  clearly  illustrated  in  Plate  VII.  In  the  earlier  examples 
in  the  Connecticut  jurisdiction  the  transition  between  the  upper 
and  the  lower  part  of  the  post  is  managed  by  a  bracket,  as  in  the 
Patterson    house,   and   in    a    more    elaborate   form    in    the    Hollister. 


Figure    ioi  —Drops   in   Whit- 
man   House. 


234 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Later  on  the  bracket  was  left  out,  though  in  some  cases  it  may  have 
been  cut  away  since  for  the  convenience  of  carpenters  in  renewing 
the  clapboards,  as  so  nearly  happened  in  the    Hollister  house. 

The  framed  overhang  was  not  used  on  tlie  backs  of  the  houses, 
and  at  first  the  JTewn  overhang  w^as  not;  but  as  time  went  on  it 
became  customary  to  carry  the  projection  around  the  entire  build- 
ing, as  in  the  Meggatt  house.  The  final  step  was  to  reduce  the 
width  of  it,  so  that  the  second  story  was  only  an  inch  or  so  be- 
yond the  first.  This  third  form,  which  we  said  was  a  slight  modi- 
fication of  the  hewn  type,  was  very  tenacious  of  life.  It  lingered 
well  on  toward  the  Revolution.  The  coming  in  of  the  newer  de- 
tails, those  generally  called 
"colonial,"  the  advent  of 
houses  like  the  Webb  and 
the  Grant,  finally  drove  it  out 
of  existence. 

In  the  New  Haven  juris- 
diction the  framed  overhang 
does  not  appear,  and  all  the 
projections  we  meet  are  of  the  hewn  type.  The  house  in  Nor- 
walk,  which  seems  to  be  an  exception  to  this  statement,  is  really 
not  an  exception,  for  that  settlement  was  a  part  of  the  Connecti- 
cut colony. 

Early  examples  of  the  overhang  do  not  meet  us  in  the  New 
Haven  towns.  Yet  it  must  have  been  in  use,  for  the  Fiske  house 
and  the  Caldwell  show  bracketed  forms  of  it  which  must  be  de- 
scended from  a  very  old  type.  There  is  an  instance  of  it  in 
Branford,  and  one  in  West  Haven,  neither  of  which  has  the 
brackets,  though,  as  we  have  shown,  these  might  easily  have  been 
removed.      The    overhang    in    the    Fiske    house    we    have   given    in 


ft-CTtc; 


Figure   102.— Scale  Drawings  of  Overhangs. 


HCW0fffflAM5M1°LU)]K 


236  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

Figure  74.  It  is  the  same  as,  that  of  the  Caldwell  save  that  it 
has  an  elaborately  moulded  chamfer  which  the  latter  lacks.  This 
moulding,  especially  in  the  stop  in  which  it  ends,  is  of  a  mediseval 
type,  though  of  classic  profile. 

The  small  overhang  which  appears  in  Hartford  in  the  third 
period  is  common,  in  New  Haven  and  its  ancient  dependents,  in 
late  houses.  It  was  the  descendant  of  the  hewn  overhangs  affected 
by  the  carpenters  of  the  latter  colony.  It  exists  in  Guilford  in 
many  instances,  and  in  the  territory  along  the  Sound  from  New 
Haven  to  the  Connecticut  river.  Eastward  of  Saybrook,  except 
in  Norwich,  an  offshoot  from  that  settlement,  it  does  not  seem  to 
occur. 

The  hewn  overhang  represents  a  different  English  tradition 
from  that  which  we  see  in  the  framed  projection.  The  latter  is 
an  old  form,  a  direct  importation  from  England,  little  modified 
if  at  all.  The  former  is  a  late  type,  developed  in  this  country 
for  constructive  reasons,  and  is  a  more  remote  descendant  from 
its  English  forbears,  the  old  Kentish'  or  Yorkshire  corner  "spur," 
and  the  bracket  at  the  head  of  the  lower  post  in  the  overhangs 
of  the  West  of  England. 

'  In  reply  to  questions  which  we  addressed  to  him,  .Mr.  Reginald  ISlomfield,  to  whose  History 
of  Renaissance  Architecliire  in  Eiif;lanti  we  have  often  referred,  writes  as  follows  :  "  In  reference 
to  the  overhang  of  timber  construction  in  England,  the  'framed  overhang.'  to  use  your  term,  is  a 
common  form  of  English  17th  cenlury  timber  construction.  Of  the  second  form,  what  you  call 
■  hewn  overhang,'  I  can  not  at  this  moment  recall  any  instance  here,  but  if  I  came  across  one  I 
should  certainly  incline  to  consider  it  quite  late  work. 

As  to  local  differences  in  England,  there  are  certain  distinct  variations  between  W.  country 
work  (Cheshire.  Lancashire,  Shropshire,  and  Herefordshire)  and  half-timber  work  in  Kent,  Sussex, 
the  E.  and  S.  E.  of  England.  'Ihe  latter  is  more  refined  in  detail,  and  generally  less  florid  than 
W.  country  work,  some  of  which,  is  cut  out  of  huge  timbers  and  is  almost  barbaric  in  its  rudeness. 

The  shaped  'spur'  to  which  I  have  called  attention,  vol.  II,  p.  324,  is  more  or  less  peculiar  to 
Kent  and  Sussex.  By  means  of  this  excellent  form  the  carpenter  was  enabled  to  overhang  on  both 
sides  as  by  sketch  herewith,  and  this  was  about  the  most  skilful  thing  in  carpentry  our  English 
carpenters  arrived  at.  'rhe  angle  bracket  shown  in  your  photograph  appears  to  me  to  be  a  reminis- 
cence of  this  old  Kentish  construction.  " 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


237 


^r 


S 


ruBL 


TT 


Hly.H 
Onrr»«c 


In  the  houses  with  no  overhangs,  the  posts,  it  will  be  remem- 
bered, were  larger  under  the  plate  than  they  were  at  the  bottom, 
whether  they  were  larger  at  the  second-story  girts  or  not.  The 
same  is  true  of  the  posts  in  the  houses  with  the  framed  overhang. 
This  enlargement  was  gained  by  a  flare  or  a  bracket.  The  posts 
in  the  houses  with  the  hewn  overhangs  have  this  same  enlarge- 
ment, but  they  never  possess  either  flare  or  bracket  on  the  inside. 
The  post  is  square  for  its  whole  height  in  the  second  story  as 
well  as  in   the  first.     That  is   to  say,  the  bracket  of  the  overhang, 

Figure  103,  takes  the  place  of  the 
inside  flare  or  of  the  inside  bracket, 
and  is  used  for  the  same  purpose. 
The  only  difference  is  that  it  is  on 
the  outside  of  the  house,  and  is 
thus  made  to  contribute  to  the 
adornment  of   the  building. 

Where  did  the  hewn  overhang 
first  come  into  use  .■^  It  is  impos- 
sible to  say.  We  believe  that,  as 
far  as  Connecticut  is  concerned, 
this  single -post  projection  first  ap- 
peared in  New  Haven.  The  reasons  for  this  supposition  lie  in 
the  ancestry  of  the  form ;  for  though,  as  we  see  it,  it  is  late, 
it  had  forerunners  in  the  colony.  It  is  a  combination  of  two 
lines  of  influence  which  converged  at  New  Haven  and  its  allied 
towns.  One  of  these  influences  came  with  the  Herefordshire 
men  from  the  West  of  England  and  shows  itself  in  the  shape 
of  the  bracket  under  the  projection.  The  double  curve  is  to 
be  seen  in  the  half -timber  gate -house  at  Stokesay  Castle,  irt 
Shropshire,    one    of    the    western    counties,    Lancashire,    Cheshire, 


U 


Figure  io?.— The  Post-Bracket  and  the 
Overhang. 


238 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Shropshire,    and     Herefordshire,    which    made    use    of    half  timber 
construction. 

The  other  Hne  of  influence  came  from  tlie  great  timber  district 
in  the  south-east  of  England,  the  ancient  counties  of  Sussex  and 
Kent.  It  is,  as  Mr.  Blomfield  suggests,  the  spur  which  the  Kentish 
carpenters   put   under  the  corner  of   tlieir   overhang,  as   is   explained 


l-IOuKli    104.— UtVELOPMUM     111      IIIL    HLUN     UVtKIIANU. 


in  Figure  104,  whicli  will  also  show  liow  near  some  of  the  ancient 
forms  of  this  spur  come  to  the  bracket  in  the  Patterson  house. 
This  same  spur  was  used  in  Yorkshire,  as  the  reader  may  see  in 
Orlando  Jewitt's  drawing  of  the  old  house  in  the  Newgate  at  York,' 


'J.  II.  I'arker,  Concise  Glossary  of  Architccltire,  p.  2S5.     Note  the  flare  at  the  top  of  the  second. 
storj'  post  in  this  house. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  239 

and  in  the  eastern  counties  also,  as  at  Bury  St.  Edmund's,'  in  a 
house  of  the  fifteenth  century,  and  again  in  the  west,  as  in  the 
Double   Butcher  Row  at  Shrevvsbury.'-' 

It  was  through  the  men  of  Kent''  or  of  Yorkshire  at  Quinni- 
piac,  or  the  settlers  from  Kent,  Surrey,  and  Sussex,  who  founded 
Guilford,  that  the  spur  form  of  overhang  came  into  the  New 
Haven  jurisdiction  where,  in  course  of  time,  it  was  modified  into 
the  hewn  overhang  with  which  we  are  familiar.  For  the  overhang 
in  Europe,  so  far  as  we  can  see,  was  always  framed,  no  matter 
how  small  its  projection. 

The  form  was  carried  northward  by  Sergeant  Richard  Beckley. 
It  perhaps  appears,  indeed,  in  the  end  overhang  of  the  I^ewis  house, 
now  part  of  the  Elm  Tree  Inn,  at  Farmington,  a  few  years  before 
he  came,  but  he  is  to  be  credited,  we  think,  with  the  general  in- 
troduction of  it.  He  was  a  carpenter  from  New  Haven,^  and  he 
settled  in  Wethersfield  about  1668.  The  Patterson  house  stands 
at  no  "reat  distance  from  his  homestead,  and  almost  on  the  edg,c 
of  the  land  granted  him  by  the  town  of  Wethersfield.  The  Hol- 
lister  house,  also,  is  within  the  ancient  limits  of  that  town.  There 
is  another  house  of  this  type  with  curved  brackets,  somewhere 
near  F"armington,  which  we  know  by  pliotograph,  but  we  have  not 
been  able  to  ascertain   its  location,  if,  indeed,   it  is  still   standing. 

One  more  fact  bears  upon  the  New  Ha\en  origin  of  the  hewn 
overhans;  in  Connecticut.  The  Rev.  Ezekiel  Roo-ers  came  to  New 
Haven  with  a  party  of  settlers  from  Yorkshire,  among  whom  was 
the  ill-fated  Lamberton.     The  pastor  afterwards  concluded  to  settle 

'Turner  and   Parker,  Domestic  Archilecltire,  vol.  Ill,  p.  30. 
'The  same,  vol.  Ill,  p.  36. 

'Jarvis  Boykin,  carpenter,  of  New   Haven,  came  from  Cliaring  in   Kent. 

^  Richard  Keckley's  inventory,  of  August.   i6go.  on  record   at   Hartford,   includes   tools  valued   at 
^l.      His  house  consisted  of  an  old  part  and  a  new. 


240  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

in  Massachusetts,  and  he  founded  the  town  of  Rowley,  near  Ips- 
wich. Not  all  his  former  parishioners  would  leave  New  Haven 
at  his  summons,  but  some  of  them  did  ;  so  that  we  find  a  group 
of  Yorkshire  men  not  only  in  the  quarter  which  bore  their  name 
at  Ouinnipiac,  but  on  the  shore  of  the  Bay.  Now  the  hewn  over- 
hang is  very  common  in  Ipswich,  and  there  is  an  instance  of  the 
later  small  form  of  it  in  the  Williams  house  at  Rowley;  while,  so 
far  as  we  know,  it  is  not  used  in  any  other  part  of  the  Massachu- 
setts colony.  Precisely  the  same  form  of  bracket  and  of  chamfer 
occurs  in  the  Fiske  house  in  Guilford  and  in  the  so-called  Salton- 
stall  house  in  Ipswich,  and  the  bracket  without  the  chamfer  appears 
in  the  Noyes  house.  The  line  of  descent  is  the  same  in  both 
cases  whether  we  think  that  the  Yorkshiremen  brought  the  spur 
form  with  them  or  whether  we  surmise  that  it  came  from  Norfolk 
with  the  settlers  of  the  Hay  colony,  great  numbers  of  whom  were 
from  the  eastern  counties.  The  fact  that  the  peculiar  form  does 
not  occur  elsewhere  in  Massachusetts  is  strong  evidence  that  it 
came  with  the  Yorkshire  carpenters  from   New   Haven. 

Much  remains  to  be  done  to  settle  absolutely  the  questions 
which  arise  about  the  overhang.  To  answer  them  we  must  know 
the  names  of  all  our  old  carpenters  and  must  know  the  towns  in 
England  from  which  they  came.  We  must  then  learn  what  type 
of  timber  construction  and  what  form  of  overhang  prevailed  in  the 
English  home  of  each  of  these  old  craftsmen. 

Gables.  In  Massachusetts,  and  occasionally  in  Rhode  Island, 
gables  were  used  on  the  fronts  of  the  houses  as  well  as  on  the 
ends. 

We  know  of  no  houses  now  standing  in  Connecticut  with 
these  front  gables,  nor  have  we  found  traces  of  them  in  any  roof 
we  have  examined. 


EARLY     CONNECTICIT     HOUSES. 


241 


They  probably  existed,  however,  for  the  Allyn  house  in  Windsor 
had  them,  if  we  may  trust  the  drawing  in  Stiles's  history,'  and  we 
see  one  over  the  porcli  in  the  drawing  of  the  old  parsonage  at 
Woodbury,'-^  and  in  the  woodcut  which  Barber  gives  of  Pastor 
Hooker's  house   in    Hartford/' 

Of  the  end  gables  there  are  two  classes,  those  which  overhang 
and  those   which  dn   not. 

Those  which  do  not  overhang  are  framed  with  studs  from  the 
end  girt  in  the  floor  up  to  the  under  sides  of  the  rafters.  They 
are  covered,  during  the  first  two  periods,  and 
for  a  part,  at  least,  of  the  third,  with  clap- 
boards nailed  directly  to  the  studs  without 
any  outside  boarding.  The  studs  are  set  flat- 
wise as  they  are  in  the  main  walls  of  the 
house.  Somewhere  in  the  third  period  the 
practice  of  using  boarding,  to  which  the  clap- 
boards were  nailed,  came  in.  It  is  very  likely 
that  the  difficulty  of  obtaining  sawn  boards 
retarded  the  introduction  of  the  fashion. 


/    /  j-ii' 

/Sol      1  F««»vt-^'i  ^'djf':. 

HoORt.  Ho- 


of the  class  of  arables  which  overhancr  there 


Figure  105. — Gable  Bracket. 


are   two   subdivisions:  —  that  in  which  the  over- 
hang  is   formed    by   the   projection   of    the   end   girt   itself,  as   in   the 
Gleason   house  at   Farmington,  and  that  in  which  there  is  a  second 
girt    carried   out   beyond   the   wall   on   the   end    of   the   plates,  as   in 
the  Stowe   house,   Milford. 

The   former  subdivision   includes   the   vast   array   of   overhanging 


'Stiles,  AnclenI    Windsor,  vol.  I,  p.  420. 
■-' Cothren,  History  of  Ancient    IVoodhury,  vol.  I.  p.  136. 

'Barber.    Conn.   Hist.    Coll.,    p.   43.     The  openings  which    have   left  traces   in    the   roof   of   the 
Hempstead  house  may,  from  the  height  of  them,  have  been  made  for  gables. 


242 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


gables,   small    and    great,   in    Connecticut.     A    glance    at    the    detail 
of  the  Gleason  house  in   Plate   I  will  explain  it. 

The  heavy  cambered  girt  is,  on  the  inside,  flush  with  the  studs 
of  the  end  of  the  house,  while  on  the  outside  it  projects  four  inches 
beyond  them  and  has  its  outer  face  flush  with  the  studs  of  the 
gable  above.  Brackets  at  the  end  help  tn  prevent  the  stick  from 
rotating.     The    slight   gable   overhangs    so   common    on    the    Sound 

and   in    the   Connecticut  valley    north- 
ward are  of  this  kind. 

The  second  subdivision  contained, 
doubtless,  its  numerous  examples, 
though  we  have  but  two  of  them  left, 
the  Moore  house  in  Windsor,  and  the 
Stowe  house  in   Milford. 

In  the  Moore  house  the  framing  is 
not  now  to  be  seen.     The  amount  of 
the  projection,  however,  renders  us  cer- 
tain as   to   the  construction   employed. 
The   huge   brackets  here  are  mere  or- 
naments,  as    indeed   they   were    in  the 
Gleason  house.     Their  size  and  shape 
are,    however,    very    interesting    and 
noteworthy,  especially  as  that  size  and 
shape  are  very  closely  repeated  in   the  Sheldon  house  at   Deerfield, 
the  gable  brackets  of  which   are   now  preserved  in   the  museum  of 
that  town. 

At  the  Stowe  house  the  two  plates  and  the  summer  are  all 
visible  from  below,  as  they  come  through  the  end  wall  of  the 
house    to  carry  the    projecting    girt    which    forms    the    tie-beam    of 


Figure  io6.— Framing  of  Gable  Overhang 
AND  OF  Cornice. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  243 

the   gable.     The   construction,   which    we   show  in    Figure    io6,   can 
also  be  verified  in  the  attic  of  the  house. 

Gable  overhangs  of  six  inches  or  thereabouts  are  used  in  eastern 
Connecticut  until  quite  late.  There  is  one,  near  Plainfield,  as  far 
down  as  1806.  They  much  resemble  the  later  specimens  in  Rhode 
Island,  and  there  is  not  much  doubt,  from  the  close  trade  relations 
between  Windham  county  and  Providence  since  1725,  that  there 
was  copying  on  one  side  or  the  other. 


The    Covering. 

Clapboards.  These  were  of  oak  until  very  late.  The  process 
of  getting  them  out  seems  to  have  been  as  follows:  The  prelimi- 
nary work  was  done  in  the  woods.  A  tree  was  selected,  felled, 
and  cut  up  into  lengths,  which  varied  of  course  with  the  length  of 
clapboards  required.  At  New  Haven  three  lengths,  at  least,  were 
in  use,  for,  in  the  laws,  clapboards  are  mentioned  four  feet,  five 
feet,  and  six  feet  long.'  In  Hartford  two  lengths  appear,  three 
feet  and  six  feet.'-  These  lengths  were  riven  into  "  bolts,"  which 
were  probably  quarters  of  the  log.  The  bolts  in  their  turn  were 
hauled  into  the  town,  into  the  shops,  perhaps,  of  the  carpenters, 
or  into  the  immediate  neighborhood  of  the  job  for  which  they 
were  intended.  For  the  clapboards  for  the  meeting-house  at  Wind- 
sor,  or   rather   the    bolts   for   them,    were   to    "  be   brought   home   by 

the  latter  end   of    the   week    following and   Samuel    Grant   is 

to    cleave    them    when    brought    home;    and    so    fit   them    and    nail 
them    about    the    meeting    house."  ^      This    work    was    called    "  clab- 


'  New  Haven  Col.  Sec.-,  I,  p.  38. 

'Conn.  Hist.  Soc.,  ColUclions,  VL  p-  28. 

^Stiles,  Ancient   IVindsor,  I,  p.  42.     Quoting  records. 


244  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

bing."  The  bolts  then  were  still  further  split  to  form  the  clap- 
boards, and  this  was  done  "quartering."  or  with  the  grain  of  the 
tree  and  perpendicular  to  the  circumference.  The  clapboard  under 
tliis  process  was  split  into  its  proper  tapering  feather- edged  sec- 
tion by  the  single  process,  with  perhaps  a  little  shaving. 

In  the  law  of  New  Haven  regulating  building  prices  we  read 
of  "  hewing  "  clapboards,  which  seems  to  mean  the  same  splitting 
process,  though  it  may  indicate  a  way  of  getting  out  a  flat  board 
of  even  thickness  and  of  greater  or  less  width  and  then  hewing 
down  the  edge  with  a  hatchet  before  putting  it  on  the  building. 
It  is  noteworthy  that  the  law  goes  on  to  say,  "and  nailing  them 
on  roofs  and  sides  of  houses."'  We  have  never  seen  an  instance 
of  this  use  of  them  in  roofs,  which,  indeed,  we  do  not  meet  again 
in  the  documents,  and  it  probably  fell  out  of  use  very  soon.  It 
left  its  mark  in  such  roofs  as  that  of  the  Baldwin  house,  where 
the  rafters  are  quite  close  together,  and  all  equal ;  that  is,  there 
are  no  principal  pairs. 

In  width  the  clapboard  was  about  the  same  as  that  now  in 
use.  The  boards  a  foot  wide  or  so  which  we  find  in  the  oldest 
houses,  especially  on  the  back  or  the  ends,  laid  the  upper  lapping 
over  the  lower,  were  not  clapboards.  They  were  what  Increase 
Mather  calls  "weather  boards." - 

The  word  clapboard  was  familiar  to  our  forefathers  in  England, 
more  so  than  it  is  to  their  present  descendants  in  that  country. 
It  has  a  German  equivalent  "  klappholz "  from  which  it  is  prob- 
ably   derived,'^    as    the    original    article    was    imported    from    north 

'.V.  //.  Col.  Kec.  I,  p.  38. 

-Mather,  Illustrious  ProvideiKts,  p.  loi. 

^  By   a   substitution    of   hoard  for    "  holz."    which    means    wood,    we   get   clapboard.      The   word 
appears  in  the  I'aston  letters  in   1477  as  '   clappalde." 

See  Murray,  A  A'ew  English  Dictionary  on  Historical  Principles,  commonly  called  the  Oxford 
Dictionar)-. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  245 

Germany  a  century  or  more  before  the  settlement  at  Plymouth. 
The  meaning  of  the  word  in  the  seventeenth  century  in  England 
differed  from  that  now  current  among  us.  It  was,  to  quote  Murray, 
"a  smaller  size  of  split  oak,  imported  from  north  Germany,  and  used 
by  coopers  to  make  barrel  staves ;  in  later  times  also  for  wainscot- 
ing. App.  now  obsolete  except  as  a  traditional  term  in  the  Cus- 
toms schedules;  quot.  1833  gives  an  interpretation  of  it  for  fiscal 
purposes."  The  quotation  under  date  of  1833  referred  to  is  Act 
3  and  4,  William  IV,  c.  56,  and  reads:  "Wood  Staves  above  3 
inches  in  thickness  or  above  7  inches  in  breadth,  and  not  exceed- 
ing 63  Inches  in  length,  shall  be  deemed  Clapboards,  and 
be  charged   with   Duty  accordingly."  '  n 

The    seventeenth    century    clapboard    in    England,   then, 
was  a  piece   of  oak,   generally   obtained  from   abroad,   about 
3    inches    by    7    or    more     in    section,    and 
about    5    feet   long.      This    was   split    up    by 
coopers,  by  means  of  tool  called  in  the  old 

,        ■  .1  ,,  r  "      •     J.         I  1        i  Figure  107— The  hROE. 

mventories    the      rroe,      mto    barrel    staves. 

Bailey,    in    his    Dictionary,    editions    from    1 721-1800,    defines    clap- 
board as  a  "  board  cut  ready  to  make  casks,  etc." 

Clapboards  appear  in  New  England  very  early.  Winthrop  re- 
cords in  his  journal,  under  August,  1632:  "Mr.  Oldham  had  a 
small    house     near    the    wear    at     Watertown,     made    all     of    clap- 


'  .See   Murray,    T/ie  Oxford  Dictionary,  under  clapboard  and  clapholt,   for  an  interesting  account 
of  the  derivation,  meaning,  and  early  use  of  the  word. 

It  must  be  remembered  that  clapboard  was  originally  the  name  of  a  kind  of  oak,  as  was  wain- 
scot also.  This  meaning  the  words  still  retained  a  few  years  ago  in  English  building  parlance. 
'•  There  is  a  species  of  oak  imported  from  Norway,  which  has  received  the  name  of  clnphoard,  and 
another  imported  from  Holland,  known  under  the  name  of  Dutch  wainscot,  though  grown  in  Cier- 
many,  whence  it  is  floated  down  the  Rhine  for  exportation."  Gwilt,  Encyclopj:dia  of  Architecture, 
p.  495.     Wainscot  means  quartered  oak  to  this  day  in  England.     Builder,  Jan.  4,  1896,  p.  20. 


246  EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

boards,  burnt  down  by  making  a  fire  in  it  wlien  it  liad  no 
chimney."  ' 

At  first  the  colonists  exported  clapboards  for  coopers'  use  in 
old  England,  or  in  the  West!»  Indies,  but  they  soon  began  to  need 
them  so  much  for  building  purposes  as  to  pass  laws  restricting 
exportations.- 

The  question  now  is:  how  did  clapboards  come  to  be  used  on 
the  outside  of  houses.''  We  have  already  answered  this  question 
by  a  theory  put  forth  in  Early  Rhode  Island  Houses,''  namely, 
that  after  trying  the  half-timber  construction  of  studs  with  plas- 
tered brick  or  clay  between  them,  the  carpenters  were  driven  to 
the  feather- edged  boarding  as  a  protection  against  the  leaks  which 
soon  declared  themselves  between  the  studs  and  their  filling.  The 
kind  of  boardin"'  which  suited  this  new  outside  sheathing  was 
that  of  the  size  known  as  "clapboards,"  those  they  were  accus- 
tomed to  look  upon  as  cooper's  material.  These  were  short,  reach- 
ing from  one  stud  to  the  second  beyond  it,  light  and  easily  handled 
at  a  height  upon  a  ladder  or  a  staging,  and  easily  shaved  down 
on  one  edge  to  allow  the  upper  course  to  lap  over  the  lower. 

Later  research  has  strengthened  in  our  minds  this  theory  of 
the  use  of  clapboards  to  protect  the  plastered  walls.  The  process 
may  have  been  going  on  in  England  at  the  time  when  our  fathers 
left  their  old  homes.  It  certainly  has  been  going  on  in  parts  of 
England  since,  perhaps  as  a  result  of  the  custom   in   New  England. 


'  Savage's    Winllirop.  vol.  I,  p,  88  (p.  73  of  the  original). 

'They  are  mentioned  in  the  Rhode  Island  (Portsmouth)  records  in  1639  in  such  a  prohiljitory 
order,  thus:  "clapboards  and  paile  at  twelve  pence  a  foot  by  the  Stubb  — "  where  the  "stubb" 
seems  to  be  the  ei|uivalent  of  the  bolt.     R.  I.  Col.  K^c,  I,  p.  97. 

On   April   3,    1640,   at  New   Haven,   Arthur    Ilalbidge   was  fined   for  selling  clapboards.       New 
Haven   Colonial  Records,  I,  p.  32. 

3  Pp.  86,  87. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  247 

Nevill '  shows  that  tiles  have  been  used  for  the  same  purpose,  and 
Blomfield-  illustrates  some  of  the  plastered  buildings  in  which  the 
whole  of  the  outside  walls  was  covered,  as  in  the  Old  P'eather 
Store  in  Boston,  which  was  a  New  England  example  of  the  same 
treatment. 

An  instance  of  the  covering  of  half- timber  work  with  wood 
appears  in  fifteenth  century  French  domestic  work.  There  is  a 
house  in  Rouen  with  its  brick -filled  stud  walls  covered  with  pan- 
elling so  that  it  is  like  a  huge  piece  of  joiner-work,  as  Viollet- 
le-duc  expresses  it.'^ 

The  idea,  then,  of  covering  the  filling  of  the  timber  frame 
with  overlapping  boards  may  not  have  been  a  new  thing  to  our 
ancestors.  The  application  of  "clapboards"  to  that  purpose  was 
at  any  rate  a  novelty.  Indeed  many  of  our  old  houses  still  ex- 
hibit weather-boards  a  foot  wide   instead   of   common    clapboarding. 

Was  any  of  the  half- timber  work  which  existed  in  the  earliest 
years  of  the  New  England  colonies  to  be  credited  to  the  Connec- 
ticut settlements.''  We  think  there  was.  The  statement  is  difficult 
to  prove,  but  there  are  certain  facts  in  its  favor.  Not  all  the 
houses  in  England  were  covered  with  weather-boards,  for  the 
number  of  "black  and  white,"  or  pure  half-timber  houses,  and 
those  too  of  late  date,  is  quite   large.     So  that  we  do  not  need  to 


'  "It  is  in  consequence  of  the  decay  of  the  timbers  ....  that  the  walls  have  been  cov- 
ered with  hanging  or,  as  they  are  called,  weather  tiles.  .■\s  far  as  I  know,  this  plan  obtains  more 
universally  in   this  part  of   Surrey  than  anywhere  else.*     ....      I   doubt  if   any  of   it  be  older 

than    150   years,  and    most  of   it   has  certainly  been   done  during   tlie   last  century the 

framing,  etc.,  is  always  to  be  found  complete  under  it."  ....  (Foot  note.)*  "  In  Kent  the 
old  cottages  h.ive,  for  the  same  reason,  been  very  much  covered  with  weather-boards  .... 
the  elaborate  plaster- work  of  Essex  and  Suffolk  is  also  an  addition  on  the  original  timbers."  K. 
Nevill,  Old  Cotla;^e  ami  Donu-slic  Architfcturc,  etc.,  pp.  21-22. 

'R.  Blomfield,  llislory  of  Renaissance  Arcliilcclnrc  in  England,  vol.  II,  pp.  367,  369.  370. 

' Viollet-le-duc,  />/</.  raisanni-'  dc  I' Arch.     Tome,  VI,  pp.  26S.  270,  art.     ^faison. 


248  EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

assume  that  every  house  was  clapboarded  here  in  the  first  four  or 
five  years. 

The  provisions  of  the  second  New  Haven  court  order  or 
"Statute  of  Laborers,"  in  that  section  of  it  whicli  treats  of  plas- 
tering,' will,  if  read  carefully,  show  traces  of  the  clay  filling  and 
the  coat  of  j)laster.  The  inside  was  certainly  so  managed.  The 
outside  must  have  been  in  some  cases,  for  there  was  little  need, 
in  the  interior  of  those  low-studded  houses,  for  the  "  malerialls 
for  scaffolding  layd  neare  the  place." 

The  old  Stoughton  house,  the  so-called  fort,  at  Windsor,  as 
it  is  described  by  Oliver  Ellsworth,  Junior,  sustains  this  theory 
of  clapboarded  half-timber  work:  "old  frame  still  remaining  is 
very  large  strong  work,  and  the  old  walls  of  the  house,  in  many 
places  now  remaining,  were  built  of  mud  and  stones  filled  in  be- 
tween the  joists  or  timbers  and  then  on  the  outside  covered  with 
boards.     The  north  wall  of  the  present  house  is  built  of  stone." - 

Boarding.  All  the  oldest  houses  in  Connecticut  and  New 
Haven  have  the  clapboards  nailed  directly  to  the  studs.  Even  in 
late  instances  this  is  also  true,  and  the  boarding,  in  examples 
which  belong  as  far  down  as  1715,  is  sometimes  an  addition  due 
to  some  later  repairs. 

This  boarding,  when  it  appears,  is  sometimes  of  oak,  and  some- 
times, in  the  later  examples,  of  pine.     It  is  always  horizontal. 

An  exception  to  this  is  the  early  boarding,  under  shingles,  in 
Southold. 

Vertical  boarding,  so  characteristic  of   Plymouth,  and  especially 


'  ^V.  H.  Col.  Ki-c,  I,  p.  55.  The  tiuotation  is  from  the  second  enactment,  with  lower  rates, 
passed  in   May.  1641. 

'Quoted  by  Stiles,  Aiicieul  Ifimisor,  1,  p.  142.  The  house  was  pulled  down  in  1809.  Ells- 
worth wrote  in   1802. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  249 

of  Providence,  while  it  is  common  enough  in  barns  all  over  the 
present  State  of  Connecticut,  is  met  in  houses  only  in  a  few  in. 
stances  and  those  in  the  eastern  half  of  the  State.  That  it  oc- 
curred very  early  in  New  London  we  have  already  explained  in 
commenting  on  the  "  girt  house "  to  be  built  there ;  and  a  good 
example  of  it  was  still  standing  in  the  fall  of  1898  in  the  Kins- 
man house  near  the  railroad  station  at  Versailles.  The  present 
hotel  in  Saybrook,  the  date  of  which  can  not  be  very  remote,  is 
also  boarded  vertically.  This  apparently  foreign  manner  may  have 
been  due  to  the  influence  of  John  Elderkin,  who  had  been  a  resi- 
dent of  Providence,'  and  perhaps  of  Plymouth.  The  vertical  board- 
ing is  of  oak  in  both  the  examples  mentioned. 

In  Hartford  and  the  other  river  towns  the  roofs  are  boarded 
horizontally  with  oak  or  with  hard  pine.  In  New  Haven  they 
are  often  boarded  vertically,  as  we  have  explained,  and  this  treat- 
ment we  find  in  the  Kinsman  house  in  the  ancient  territory  of 
Norwich. 

Shingles.  These  were  sometimes  of  the  sizes  common  to-day, 
and  sometimes  very  much  longer,  like  those  still  to  be  seen  in 
New  Hampshire.  A  long  form  of  shingle,  also,  is  still  to  be  found 
in  Southold,  where  it  is  very  common  as  a  covering  for  walls, 
which,  of  course,  had  first  to  be  boarded.  This  size  goes  back 
to  the  early  settlement,  as  the  following  extract  from  the  New 
Haven  court  order,  which  we  have  so  often  quoted,  will  help  to 
show : 

"  Shingle,  good  stuff  H  of  an  inch,  and  6  or  7  or  8  inches 
broad,  sorted  in  the  woods,  being  3  foote  2'  6''  ^  hundred.  2 
foote   2\     14  inches    i^    "f^   hundred,  butt  if  defective,  price  accord- 

'  Miss  Caulkins,  History  of  New  London,  p.  159. 


250  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

ingly." '  In  the  second  order,  passed  in  May,  164 1,  there  are  a 
few  more  particulars :  "  Hewing  and  shooting  shingle,  well  done 
3  foote  nott  above  a  — ,  2  foote  nott  above  9  p  100,  14,  15  or 
16  inches  nott  above  y"*  \>  hundred.  Lathing  and  laying  shingle, 
squar  worke  w'h  sawen  laths  3  foote  a  2  foote  14,  15  or  16  inches 
long,  lo"*  p  hundred — If  hewed  shingle  11''  Ip  hundred.  If  there 
be  diu''  gutters  to  be  laid,  then   together   13''  "p  hundred."" 

The  hewing  means  splitting  out  the  shingle,  shooting  was 
planing  the  edges  with  a  "  shooter,"  a  plane  which  we  now  should 
call  a  long  "jointer."  The  lathing  was  laying  on  the  rafters  square 
or  rectangular  sticks  of  small  size  somewhat  like  the  purlins  so 
common  in  the  New  Haven  territory.  On  these  the  shingle  were 
nailed,  as  the  thatch  was  tied  to  them,  without  boarding.  This 
is  an  old  English  waj'  of  laying  slate  and  no  doubt  shingle  also,^ 
and  the  inveterate  habit  which  modern  carpenters  have  of  board- 
ing roofs  with  wide  joints  is  a  survival  of  it.  The  gutter  was 
what  we  should  call  a  "valley,"  the  trough  at  the  junction  of  two 
roofs  at  right  angles  to  each  other.  There  were  no  gutters  in 
our  sense,  and  if  there  had  been  they  would  not  have  been  shin- 
gled. This  clause  points  to  the  presence  of  gables,  but  it  is  doubt- 
ful if  these  were  common  except  on  the  meeting-houses. 

In  the  votes  about  the  meeting-house  at  Windsor  we  meet  the 
gutter  again.  In  December,  1659,  the  townsmen  had  voted  "that 
the  town  barn  shall  be  repaired  and  thatched."  On  January  7, 
1660,    they    "met    and    agreed    that    the    meeting    house    should    be 


^  iVeui  Haven  Col.  Rcc,  I.  p,  38. 

'  The  same,  p.  55. 

'Shingles  occur,  with  the  Latin  name  "cendulum,"  in  the  time  of  Henry  III.  See  rurner  and 
Parker,  DomeslU  Arclnli-cture,  I,  p.  60.  note.  We  can  see.  from  the  court  order,  that  the  occur- 
rence of  the  word  lath  does  not  necessarily  imply  plastering. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  251 

shinsfled,  all  the  abutters  on  both  sides  of  the  lanthorn,  and  not 
alter  the  form  of  the  roof."'  They  contracted  with  Samuel  Grant 
for  the  shingling  of  one  side  of  the  roof  "with  iS  inch  shingle. 
He  is  to  o-et  the  shinsjle  in  the  woods,  and  but  them  and  hew 
them,  and  lay  them  on  one  inch  and  a  quarter  thick,  generally, 
and  seven  inches  in  breadth,  one  with  another,  and  he  is  to  have 
4s  per  100  for  all  plain  work,  and  for  the  gutters,  because  of  the 
more  difificulty  of  laying  these,  he  is  to  have  what  he  shall  in 
equity  judge  to  be  worth  more  than  4s "- 

As  we  might  expect  from  these  records,  shingled  side  walls 
did  not  exist  in  Connecticut,  outside  of  Southold,  in  the  first  two 
periods. 

The  WINDOWS  were  very  small  in  the  first  two  periods,  and 
even  well  into  the  third.  One  still  exists  on  the  rear  of  the 
Meggatt  house,  which  is  I'-jl-i"  wide,  and  I'-g'X"  high.  Earlier 
examples  are  wanting. 

Of  SASH  there  are  several  specimens  preserved  in  the  various 
museums  of  antiquities  in  New  England.  They  betray  the  small 
size  of  the  early  windows.  One  of  the  most  interesting  of  them 
is  now  in  the  collection  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society  at 
Hartford.  It  is  unique  in  possessing  a  transom,  as  our  drawing 
of  it  shows,  though  the  same  disposition  appears  in  the  old  paint- 
ing of  the  Rocrer  Williams  house  at  Salem.  The  stiles  are  "s  of 
an  inch  thick  and  1^8  inches  wide,^  with  a  rebate  H  of  an  inch 
deep  for  the  glass.  The  transom  is  half  an  inch  wider  than  either 
top  or  bottom   rail,  which   are  equal   and   of  the   same  width   as   the 


'Stiles,  Ancient  Windsor,  I,  p.  8go. 

"  rhe  same,  p.  Sgo. 

^The  sizes  we  give  are  on  tlie  outside   wliere  the  rebate  is,      .\  large  quarter  of  an   inch   must 
be  added  to  the  stiles  and  rails,  and  a  large  half  to  the  transom,  to  obtain  the  exact  sections. 


252  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

stiles  or  upright  pieces.  The  marks  of  the  strap  hinges  are  plainly 
to  be  seen  on  the  wood,  which  has  weathered  less  where  they  pro- 
tected it. 

This  sash  once  formed  part  of  a  double  casement  window. 
The  weather-strip,  which  protected  the  vertical  joint  between  the 
two  casements,  is  still  partly  in  place.  This  shows  that  such  win- 
dows were  not  unknown,  while  the  fact  that  the  weather-strip  is 
nailed  on  and  that  there  is  no  rebate  cut  in  the  stile  to  receive 
the  other  sash  proves  that  the  casement  was  once  single  and  that 
it  closed  a  window  of  only  its  own  width. 

The  old  word  for  these  sash  was  casement,  and  we  still  think, 
when  we  speak  of  casement  windows,  of  sash  hung  at  the  side 
as  these  were,  though  these  were  always  swung  out  instead  of  in 
to  keep  them  tight.  The  word  occurs  in  the  Windsor  records  in 
1669,  where  we  read  that  "William  Buell  [who  was  a  carpenter] 
came  and  brought  two  new  casements  for  the  corner  windows  of 
the  meeting  house." ' 

The  word  sash,  which  means  the  double-hung  window,  comes 
from  the  French  "  chasse."  The  "  shas  frames  and  shas  lights," 
mentioned  in  Moxon's  "  Mechanick  Exercises,"  in  1700,  show  an 
early  form  of  the  word.  The  date  of  the  first  double-hung  win- 
dow in  the  Connecticut  colonies  we  have  no  means  of  determin- 
ing. They  were  in  use  in  Windsor  as  early  as  1763,  for,  on 
June  23  of  that  year,  there  is  a  record  of  springs  or  weights  for 
the  windows  of  the  meeting-house.-'  We  do  not  believe  that  any 
hung  sash  were  used  before  1725,  for  they  were  hardly  domesti- 
cated in  England  till  the  time  of  William  III,  though  an  example 
with   cord    and   weight   is   said    to  occur  in   Wickham   court,    Kent, 

'Stiles,  Ancient    Windsor,  vol.  I,  p.  129. 
'  .Same,  p.  586. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  253 

as  early  as  the  reign  of  James  I.  Lambert's  drawing  of  the 
Eaton  house  gives  a  Hne  across  the  windows  as  though  he  meant 
to  indicate  double-hung  sash.  If  such  sash  really  existed  in  the 
house  they  must  have  been  among  the  earliest  instances,  for  the 
building  was  pulled  down  very  early  in  the  last  century. 

Perhaps  the  poorer  settlers,  if  they  were  not  content  with  mere 
wooden  shutters  wherewith  to  close  their  windows,  used  cloth  or 
oiled  paper  instead  of  glass.  The  common  idea  is  that  oiled  paper 
was  used,  but  where  the  supply  of  pajDcr  came  from,  when  that 
article  must  have  been  far  too  precious  to  divert  from  its  ordinary 
use,  nobody  pretends  to  know.  The  very  advice  which  some  one 
gave  to  intending  settlers,  that  they  should  bring  oiled  paper  for 
windows,  shows  that  little  could  be  obtained  here.  It  was  prob- 
ably glass  or  nothing  in  the  earliest  windows.  The  poor  had  a 
simple  opening,  closed  when  necessar}-  with  a  wooden  shutter;  the 
richer  householders  had  glass. 

The  wealthier  of  the  settlers  probably  imported  glass  from  the 
old  country.  Wyllys,  Davenport,  Eaton,  and  men  of  their  stand- 
ing, accustomed  in  England  to  glass  as  a  necessitv,  and  even  as 
a  decoration,  would  not  go  without  it  here.  As  a  matter  of  fact, 
however,  the  commodity  does  not  appear  very  soon  in  the  records. 
On  February  25,  1659,  the  town  ofificers  of  New  London  were 
instructed  that  one  of  their  duties  was  to  provide  glass  windows 
for  the  meeting-house  "with  all  convenient  speed."' 

In  Hartford  glass  is  not  mentioned  directly,  but  on  "  August 
last  1667,  The  towne  by  thair  vote  ordered  and  impowered  the 
the  townsmen  to  gett  ....  nessessar)'  Lights  for  the  Gal- 
lery."-    This  was  in  the  meeting-house. 

'  Miss  Caulkins,  Niw  London,  p.  g2. 
*Conn.  Hist.  Soc.  Collections,  VI,  p.  152. 


254 


EARLY    CONXECTrCUT     HOUSES. 


■o 

.1 

r4 


l--fik 


In    Windsor,   in     i66S,    tlic    town    sent    for    John    Gibbard    "  to 
get   him    to   come   and    mend    the   crJass   of   the    meetinfr  house    win- 

dows,"  w  li  i  c  li  w  o  Li  1  d 
get  broken,  even  in 
Puritan  times. 

Later  on,  in  New 
London,  in  1679,  tlie 
town,  contracting  for 
a  new  meeting-house, 
agreed  to  furnish  the 
glass.'  Again,  at  Sims- 
bury,  in  1697,  tlie  Rev. 
Dudley  Woodbridge's 
record  gives  :  "  jour- 
ney to  Windfor  for 
giaffe,"  and  "putting 
up  Giaffe,""'  as  items 
in  the  account  of  the 
minister's  house. 

All  the  old  glass, 
which  was  very  green 
in  color,  though  this 
quality  has  increased 
with  asre,  consisted  of 
diamond-shaped  "quar- 
rels," set,  with  their  long  axis  vertical,  in  lead  "calmes"  or  bars. 
Square  panes,  set  in   the  same  calmes,  appear,  but  they  must  have 


Figure  io8.— Sash   now  in   rooms   of^  Conn.  Historical  Society. 


'  Miss  Caulkins,  AV:c  London,  p,  igi. 

«A.    C.    Hates,    The  Rev.    Diuiley    Woodbriilge,   his   Church    Record  al  Slmsbiiry  in   Connecticut, 
J697-1710, 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  255 

been  quite  rare.  We  have  known  of  only  two  examples,  one  of 
which,  that  once  in  William  Coddington's  house,  Newport,  we  have 
illustrated  in  Eaidy  Rhode  Island  Houses.  Nevill  says  that  the 
square  form  is  later  than  the  diamond,  but,  at  the  time  our  ances- 
tors came  over,  the  forms  were  contemporary,  so  that  no  such  test 
can  be  applied  here. 

Glass  was,  in  the  periods  of  which  we  treat,  sold  by  the  square 
foot,  as  it  is  now.  It  was  probably  imported  from  England,  and 
that  very  early,  in  boxes,  perhaps  sometimes  already  leaded,  for 
some  of  the  leaded  work  had  to  be  curiously  cut,  as  in  the  Arthur 
Fenner  house,  near  Providence,  to  make  it  fit  the  casement. 

The  calmes  were  of  the  same  H  shape,  so  familiar  in  modern 
stained -glass  work.  A  guess  at  the  relative  date  of  examples 
can  be  made  from  their  weight.  Early  ones  are  heavier.  They 
were  made,  in  the  third  period,  by  machinery,  for  a  miniature 
rolling-mill,  now  in  the  possession  of  the  Connecticut  Historical 
Society,  was  imported  from  London  for  the  manufacture  of  them. 
The  date  on  this  quaint  machine,  1718,  shows  how  late  the  leaded 
casement  must  have  persisted.'  Indeed,  the  first  hung  sash  were 
filled  with  leaded  glass,  just  as  were  the  old  hinged  windows. 

The  BARGE-BOARD  or  VERGE-BOARD  was  the  false  rafter  which 
appeared  to  carry  the  projecting  eaves  of  the  roof  on  the  slope 
of  the  gable,  or  the  "  rake,"  as  it  is  technically  called.  The  plate 
generally  projected  far  enough  in  front  of  the  gable  wall  to  carry 
the  foot  of  the  board.  The  barge -board,  which  is  essentially  a 
mediaeval  device,  and  a  very  beautiful  one,  was  once  very  common 
in  New  England,  and  very  likely  retained  the  cusping,  which  was 

'  Mr.  A.  C.  Bates,  Secretary  of  the  Connecticut  Historical  Society,  writes :  "  Rev.  Mather 
Byles  writing  from  New  London  in  1762  tells  of  an  accident  whereby  'ten  Quarrels  of  Glass  in 
the  kitchen  window'  were  broken." 


256  EAKI.Y     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

not  yet  out  of  fashion  in  old  England  in  the  time  of  James  I. 
Old  drawings  show  instances  of  the  plain  board  in  Massachu- 
setts, and  Lambert  has  indicated  one,  apparently  with  some  sort 
of  cusping,  in  his  drawing  of  Governor  Eaton's  house.'  The 
board  along  the  rake  of  the  gable,  which  still  in  many  instances 
stands  clear  of  the  wall  a  little  way,  is  the  direct  descendant  of  this 
verge.  The  Viall-Mowry  house,  in  old  Rehoboth,  now  East  Provi- 
dence, still  has  a  barge-board,  a  narrow  strip  of  wood  distant 
about  six  inches  from  the  gable  wall,  with  its  foot  resting  on  the 
end  of  the  heavy,  projecting  plate.  The  marks  of  the  barge-boards 
are  very  plain  in  the  Walker  house,  also  in   East  Providence. 

The  PYRAMIDS  were  the  finials  which  adorned  the  peaks  of  the 
gables.  There  are  none  of  them  left,  but  drawings  of  them  exist 
in  Massachusetts,  in  the  picture  of  the  Roger  Williams  house,  and 
in  that  of  the  Bradstreet  house;  and  the  fact  that  John  Elder- 
kin  and  Samuel  Lothrop,  in  their  contract  for  the  meeting-house 
at  New  London,  agreed  to  "  set  up  on  all  the  four  gables  of  the 
house  pyramids  comely  and  fit  for  the  work"-  shows  that  they 
were  used  in   the  settlements  of  Connecticut. 

Dormers.  These  were  used  very  seldom,  if  at  all,  in  early 
work.  We  know  of  only  one  house  in  which  traces  of  them  are 
to  be  found  —  the   Hempstead  house  in   New  London.'' 

The  name  they  are  often  known  by  in  the  seventeenth  century 
was  that  of  "  lutheran  "  windows.  This  may  be  a  corruption  of 
"  lanthorn,"  through  the  form  "  luthorn,"  in  which  the  word  for  the 


'  This  cusping  may  be  only  the  brackets  of  a  classic  raking  cornice.  Such  brackets  are  indi- 
cated in  the  level  cornices.  They  show,  if  they  are  authentic,  that  the  house  was  revamped  at 
some  time  in  the  early  iSth  century. 

^  April   19,  1679.     Miss  Caulkins,  New  London,  p.  191. 

'"The  older  roofs  rarely,  if  ever,  have  dormers."  K.  Nevill,  Old  Collage  and  Domeslic  Arclii- 
tecltire  in  Surrey,  p.  33. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  257 

dormer  sometimes  appears,  or  it  may  —  and  this  is  perhaps  more 
likely  —  come  from  the  French  /iicarne,  possibly  through  some 
Norman  French  variation.  The  word  lucan  occurs  in  a  letter  of 
an   Elizabethan  craftsman  quoted  by  Blomfield.' 

The    Interior. 

Whether  the  upper  floor  of  the  two  which  always  exist  in 
the  first  story  of  the  early  houses  is  original  it  is  difiicult  to  deter- 
mine. In  the  second  story  and  in  the  garret  one  floor  is  the  rule. 
Oak  and  hard  pine  were  the  favorite  materials.  The  floors  in  the 
Painter  house  are  of  oak,  which  is  the  prevailing  material  for  gar- 
rets. In  the  second  story,  the  hall  chamber,  of  the  Patterson  house, 
the  floor  is  of  hard  pine.  The  boards  in  this  floor  are  si.xteen 
inches  wide  and  fourteen  feet  long,  and,  it  need  hardly  be  said, 
very   heavy. 

The  boards  were  not  put  together  with  tongue  and  groove,  as 
they  are  now,  but  were  halved  together,  as  in  the  example  just 
mentioned  in  the   Patterson  house. 

Till  about  1735-40,  in  Hartford  and  the  other  Connecticut 
towns,  the  insides  of  the  walls  were  covered  with  wide  horizontal 
pine  boards,  grooved  together,  and  adorned  with  mouldings  at  the 
joints,  as  in    the  Gleason  and   Whitman  houses  and  several  others. 

This  WAINSCOT  is  one  of  the  most  artistic  touches  which  the 
old  craftsmen  gave  their  work.  It  would  not  answer  on  the  out- 
side, for  the  joints  could  not  be  kept  tight  as  they  could  with 
the  overlapping  clapboards.  Where,  as  in  the  Fairbanks  house, 
at    Dedham,    Massachusetts,    the    feather- edged    board    is    used    on 

'  R.  Blomfield,  A   History  of  A'fiiaissa/ice  Arc/ii/cc/iiri-  in   Eti^land,  I,  p.  31. 


258  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

the  inside  —  a  practice  no  instance  of  which  occurs  in  Connecticut 
—  the  lower  edge  of  it  is  moulded.  It  is  curious  to  note,  also, 
that  in  Plymouth,  which,  like  Providence,  abandoned  the  stud 
system  and  used  vertical  boarding — as  the  Connecticut  settlers  did 
for  barns — we  find  similar  mouldings  applied  to  the  vertical  joints 
in  the  boarding  of  the  outer  walls,  because  these  showed  inside  the 
rooms.'  We  give,  in  Figure  109,  several  sections  of  the  joints 
with  the  mouldinsfs  which  belonc;  to  them. 

In  the  third  period  this  form  of  wainscoting  was  still  used  for 
kitchens,  but  a  more  elaborate  kind  began  to  take  the  place  of  it 
in  the  parlor.  This  is  the  panelling  with  stile  and  rail,  a  system 
which  in  its  mediaeval  garb  of  "pillar  and  pane"  is  as  old  as  the 
other,  but  which  for  some  reason  did  not,  so  far  as  we  can  now 
ascertain,  find  favor  with  the  early  Connecticut  carpenters.  Indeed, 
though  they  were  familiar  with  it  in  chests,  they  seem  reluctant, 
perhaps  from  the  labor  and  consequent  expense  involved,  to  use 
it  in  houses,  for  in  the  entry  of  the  Sheldon  house  the  panelling, 
which  forms  a  dado  along  the  wall  to  a  height  of  nearly  three 
feet,  while  it  has  its  base,  its  cap  moulding  or  chair  rail,  its  top 
and  bottom  stile,  and  its  raised  and  bevelled  panel,  has  no  stiles 
or  upright  divisions  in  its  length,  but  forms  a  clear  instance  of 
transition  between  the  old  wainscot  and  the  new. 

Some  of  the  new  panelling  is  very  elegant,  and,  when  it  be- 
comes fashionable  it  is  excellently  wrought,  far  better  than  the 
old  chests,  though  the  difference  between  the  oak  of  the  chests 
and  the  pine  of  the  panelling  must  count  for  something. 

The  end  of  the  hall,  and  of  the  parlor  as  well,  and  even  of 
the    parlor   chamber,    was,    in    the    latter   part    of    the    third    period, 

'  In  the  Doten  house,  Plymouth,  1662.  •  • 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  259 

often  covered  with  panelling.  But  here  we  are  beyond  the  limits 
to  which  we  mean  to  confine  ourselves,  and  are  trenching  on  the 
Georgian  work,  the  so-called  "colonial"  style. 

Plastering  was  the  rule  on  the  side  walls  of  the  houses  in 
New  Haven,  and  we  do  not  find  the  earlier  wainscot.  The  habit 
of  using  the  plaster  on  the  lower  part  of  the  walls  either  existed 
or  was  expected  to  exist  at  the  time  of  the  wage  order  in  1641. 
The  same  things  may  be  said  about  the  later  forms  of  panelling 
here  as  of  those  in  Hartford,  though  we  have  seen  no  such  form 
as  that  in  the  Sheldon  house.  The  same  is  true  of  New  London. 
Here,  however,  as  we  might  expect  from  the  vertical  boarding, 
we  find  the  wainscot  set  vertically  in  one  example. 

The  origin  of  the  word  wainscot  is  obscure.  It  may  be  wand 
schot  —  wall  protection — or,  as  is  also  given,  wain  (wagon)  and 
schot  (partition),  the  thin  boards  used  for  the  sides  of  wagons. 
At  all  events  it  meant  in  England  at  the  time  our  fathers  left, 
and  for  three  hundred  years  before  that  time,  a  certain  kind  of 
oak  imported  from  the  Netherlands,  quartered  oak,  in  fact,  as  we 
call  it.  From  this  use  the  word  was  transferred  to  the  casing;  of 
walls,  for  which  this  wainscot  oak  was  employed.  In  this  sense 
it  generally  means  panelling,  and  that  is  the  generally  accepted 
meaning  of  the  word  in  our  day. 

Among  our  colonial  forefathers  in  the  earlier  times  the  word 
had,  however,  another  meaning.  To  them  the  horizontal  and  some- 
times vertical  boarding  which  we  have  described,  put  together  with 
tongue  and  groove,  like  our  "  matched  and  beaded "  sheathing  or 
siding,  was  also  wainscot. 

This  is  proved  by  the  "  Wenscutt  plough  "  (wainscot)  which 
appears   in   the   inventory  of   "  old    Mr.   William   Carpenter,"   of  the 


260 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Providence  Plantations,  at  his  deatli  in  16S5.'  There  is  no  panel- 
work  in  Rhode  Island  houses  of  this  date,  and  no  panelled  chests 
are  certainly  known  to  have  been  built  there  —  except,  perhaps,  the 
Field  chest  —  but  there  is  a  good  deal  of  upright  partition  work 
put  together  with  tongue  and  groove.  . 

We  know  also  from  Governor  Winthrop,  of  Massachusetts,  that 
the  horizontal  sheathing  was  called  wainscot.  In  his  journal,  in 
1632,  he  records,  as  part  of  an   interview  with    Mr.   Ludlow:     "The 


or 
P°OP 


WIPL 


f^ooQr: 


pH°VLPING 
k(w  Vtiaicw. 


WhiT/^am  H"^v5E-    [jJ:H°V3£:        r'piYApvTH 


Figure   loq. 

Governor  having  formerl)^  told  him  that  he  did  not  well  to  bestow 
such  cost  about  wainscotins:  and  adorninsj  his  house,  in  the  begin- 
ning  of  a  plantation,  both  in  regard  of  the  necessity  of  public 
changes,  and  for  example  etc.,  his  answer  now  was,  that  it  was 
for  the  warmth  of  his  house,  and  the  charge  was  little,  being  but 
clapboards  nailed  to  the  wall  in   the  form  of  wainscot."^ 

'  Early  Records  oj  the    Town  of  Providence,  VI,  p.  150. 

■Savage's    Winthrop,  I,  p.  104  (p.  87  of  original).      Mather  spealis  of  boards  before  the  chimney 
as  "deals." 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  2(jl 

The  only  partitions  used  in  the  houses  of  the  earliest  period, 
those  houses  which  were  but  one  room  deep,  will  appear  on  anj' 
of  the  plans.  They  are  those,  namely,  which  separate  the  hall 
on  one  side  and  the  parlor  on  the  other  from  the  chimney  and 
from  the  porch  or  entry  which  contained  the  stairs,  and  that  as 
well  which  shuts  in  the  staircase  itself.  These  partitions  are  made 
of  inch  boards  of  pine  grooved  and  tongued  together  and  adorned 
at  the  joints  with  the  same  mouldings  which  we  find  in  the  wain- 
scot of  the  outer  wall.  Indeed  the  partition  against  the  chimney, 
as  can  be  seen  in  the  section  of  the  Whitman  house,  in  Figure 
1 6,  is  only  a  continuation  of  the  wainscot.  Around  the  staircase, 
however,  and  sometimes  on  the  chimney  end  of  the  room,  the 
boards  are  set  vertically. 

When  the  lean-to  was  added  the  wainscot  on  both  sides  of 
the  studs  of  the  original  back  wall  formed  the  partition  between 
the  front  rooms  and  the  kitchen,  and  when  the  lean-to  was  built 
as  part  of  the  house  this  stud  partition  was  still  used.  The  par- 
titions which  separate  the  rooms  in  the  lean-to  are  often  of  ver- 
tical boarding. 

Stud  partitions  with  plaster  are  not  original  till  very  late.  Per- 
haps the  earliest  are  in  the  Sheldon  house,  Hartford.  They  were 
common  much  earlier  in  New  Haven.  They  are,  like  the  wain- 
scoted kitchen  partitions,  of  studs  set  flatwise,  and  not  of  boards 
set  an  inch  apart  in  the  row,  and  plastered  both  sides  on  lath 
nailed  directly  to  them,  as  was  the   Rhode  Island  custom. 

Late  in  the  third  period,  at  about  the  time  when  plaster  parti- 
tions came  into  vogue,  the  chimney  partition  is  made  of  panelling, 
as  we  have  explained  above. 

The  earliest  inside  doors  were  of  vertical  wainscot,  secured  by 
battens    on    one    side.     The    joints   were   exactly  like    those    in    the 


202  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

wall  wainscot  and  in  the  ]mititions.  It  was  no  wonderful  matter, 
then,  for  Mrs.  Allerton  to  hide  the  reo;icides  in  a  closet,'  for  it 
took  no  great  skill  to  make  a  door  of  vertical  boards  look  like  an 
immovable  i)art  of  a  vertical  partition,  especially  if  the  wall  was 
hung  with   brass  pans,  and   thus  partly  covered. 

The  oldest  outside  doors  were  of  plain  vertical  boards  on  the 
outside,  crossed,  for  strength,  by  horizontal  boards  within.  A  door 
in  the  back  of  the  lean-to  in  the  John  Barnard  house,  which  was 
very  likely  the  original  front  door,  was  of  this  kind,  a  type  in  use 
in  Old  England."  We  have  never  seen  a  pattern  formed  by  nail 
heads  on  the  outside.  The  Dutch  door,  as  it  is  called,  in  which 
the  top  half  can  be  opened  separately  from  the  bottom  half  —  a 
most  excellent  device  —  may  have  been  used  very  early.  Lambert 
shows  one  in  Gov.  Eaton's  house.  The  examples  which  now  exist, 
however,  are  all  .very  late. 

The  inside  doors  in  the  Whitman  house,  of  which  we  give 
details  in  Figure  109,  are  original,  and  will  repay  study  as  they 
show  how  naturally  the  craftsmen  added  an  artistic  touch  even 
to  what  we  should  call  a  common  "  batten  "  door.  The  successor 
of  this  earliest  door  is  that  with  two  large  panels,  each  the  width 
of  the  door,  and  with  a  rail  between  them  about  the  middle  of 
the  height.     After  these  came  an   increasing  number  of  panels. 

The  outside  doors  become  double  in  the  third  period,  and 
are  quite  elaborately  panelled  in  late  examples,  as  the  Grant 
house. 

A  mediceval  fashion  of  building  stairs  was  to  make  the  steps 
of    solid    timber,    triangular    in    section,    formed    by    cutting    beams 


'  Stiles,    following   tradition,    says   that    Mrs.    Eyers,    Isaac   Allerton's   granddaughter,    concealed 

the  regicides.     See,  however,  Atwater's  comment  in  his  History,  pp.  434-5.  note. 
M<.  Nevill,  OU  Collate,  etc.,  p.  41, 


EARLY  CONNF.CTICUT  HOUSES. 


263 


along  their  diagonals.      No  example  of  this  e.xists  in   New   England 
in    the   first   story,   but   both    the    Fialduin    and    the    Patterson    house 


^TAIR 


Rail 

v!)t°wlH° 


FioukE  iiu.— Stair    Details, 


have  flights  of  solid  steps  leading  down  into  the  cellar.  Whether 
these  steps  are  triangular  or  not  we  can  not  say.  Our  impression 
is  that  they  are  all  full  rectangles  in  section.      In  the  Amos  W'ynian 


264  EARLY  CONNECTirUT  HOUSES. 

house,  Billcrica,  Massachusetts,  there  is  a  cellar  stair  of  triangular 
steps  pinned  to  rough  strings.' 

While  the  stairs  in  the  upper  stories  of  the  earlier  houses  are 
not  of  solid  steps,  and  while  the  steps  of  them  are  built  up  of  thin 
risers  and  treads  like  those  of  our  own  day,  these  risers  and  treads 
are  put  together  and  supported  in  a  way  very  different  from  ours, 
and  one  which  can  hardly  fail  to  be  interesting  even  to  those  who 
are  not  fond  of  framing  for  its  own  sake. 

There  are  three  examples  in  the  Connecticut  jurisdiction:  the 
Whitman  house,  Farmington ;  the  John  Barnard  house,  Hartford ; 
and  the  Patterson  house,  Berlin.  There  is  another  in  the  New 
Haven  settlement  in  the  Baldwin  house,  at  Branford ;  and,  curi- 
ously, these  four  are  very  nearly  the  same. 

In  Figure  iio  we  give  some  details  of  the  second-story  stair- 
case in  the  Whitman  house.  The  front  string  was  supported  by 
the  posts  or  studs  of  the  partition,  or  sort  of  cage  which  enclosed 
the  stair.  The  back  string  was  carried  at  its  foot  by  a  stud  in 
the  wall  of  the  parlor,  and  at  its  head  by  the  chimney  girt.  The 
treads  are  not  housed  into  either  string  but  are  supported  partly 
by  the  risers,  which  are  housed  in,  partly  by  the  pieces  under  the 
risers,  while  they  are  stiffened  in  the  center  by  the  cross-piece 
framed  into  the  riser  top  in  front,  and  into  the  supporting  piece 
already  mentioned  behind,  under  the  next  riser.  The  treads  on 
the  straight  run  are  cut  out  in  the  way  shown  by  the  drawing  to 
avoid  housing  them  into  the  string  and  to  let  the  string  run  by 
without  cutting  it  into  the  saw  teeth,  to  be  seen  in  a  modern 
rough  string. 

In  Figure   iii    we  give  the  lower  flight  of  stairs  in  the   Patter- 


'J.  \V.  Freese, ///j/(?;vV  Houses  aud  Spots  in   Camtiridi^e  and  iVedr/'V    'J'oicns,  p.  65. 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


265 


son    house.     The   drawing    is    a    perspective   taken   from    an    imagi- 
nary   point    considerably    below    the    floor.      The    partition    or    cage 


5CCT10.N  -■'=  DTtp      PATTCP^oAi  H^VJE 


Figure  hi. 


of  which  we  spoke  in  the  Whitman  house  is  here  shown  as  if  cut 
away.     There   is    no   wall    string    in    the   first   flight,   but   the  sticks 


266  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

carrying  the  treads  are  built  into  the  masonry  of  the  chimney.  In 
the  second  flight  there  is  a  wall  string  which  is  below  the  steps  and 
serves  to  cany  the  strips  from   the   risers  which  support  the  treads. 

To  these  old  flights  of  stairs,  some  of  them  all  winders,  suc- 
ceeded the  open  flights  with  winders  framed  into  posts,  or  with 
square  platforms  at  the  turns.  These,  which  are  shown  in  most 
of  the  plans  we  have  given,  have  what  are  called  box  strings, 
that  is,  the  ends  of  the  steps  are  housed  into  a  closed  string  on 
the  front  and  do  not  appear.  These  strings  are  often  elaborately 
moulded.  The  posts  are  square,  with  moulded  tops,  and  drops 
begin  to  appear.  The  balusters,  which  are  not  always  present, 
are  turned  and  never  sawed,  as  is  often  the  case  in  Rhode  Island. 
A  judgment  as  to  the  age  of  the  stair  can  be  made  by  noting 
the  turning  of  these  balusters.  The  stumpy  forms,  with  short 
curves,  are  the  older.  Balusters  can  be  of  very  early  date,  though 
no  examples  remain  back  of  the  third  period,  when  the  new  form 
of  stairs  began  to  come  in.  They  are  mentioned  in  the  Hartford 
records  in  March,  1639,  when  a  committee  was  appointed  to  "build 
a  strong  sufficient  Cart  Bridg  to  bee  xij  ffoote  wyde  between  the 
Rayles  w"'  Turned   Ballasters  on  the  Tope." ' 

We  give,  in  Figure  no,  some  details  of  the  stairs  of  this  class, 
notably  that  of  the  Stowe  house,  Milford,  which  is  a  "  dog-legged" 
stair,  one  in  which  one  post  at  the  turn  does  the  duty  of  two.  It 
is  the  only  example  we  have  seen.  Gotch  gives  one  very  much 
like  it,  at  St.  John's,  Warwick.'-  The  gradual  change  of  the  shape 
of  the  rail  is  interesting. 

After    these    box -string    stairs    came,    later   in    the    third    period 


'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  Colleciioiis,  VI,  p.  31. 

'J.  A.  Gotch,  Arc/iiteclurt  of  the  Renaissance  in  England,  Part  I,  p.  7. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  267 

—  the  two  classes  may  have  overlapped  —  the  open-string  stairs, 
with  the  ends  plainly  visible  and  adorned  with  brackets  of  fanci- 
ful shape  under  the  returned  nosing.  Here  belong  the  elaborate 
staircases  of  the  Webb  house,  the  Belden- Butler,  the  Grant,  and 
others,  with  their  carved  and  twisted  balusters  and  moulded  nos- 
ings relieved  by  a  cove  below  them.  These  belong  really  to  a 
time  which  it  is  not  our  province  to  discuss. 

Sometimes  the  stairs  are  carried  up  between  two  walls  outside 
of  the  main  entry.  The  stairs  in  the  Sheldon  house  and  in  the 
Marsh  house  are  examples  of  this,  as  was  the  Ward  house  in 
Hartford,  recently  destroyed. 

About  the  back  stairs  there  is  little  to  be  said.  They  came 
in  with  the  lean-to  in  the  second  and  third  periods.  They  seldom 
rise  more  than  one  story  in  the  place  usually  given  them.  The 
stair  to  the  garret  very  often  goes  up  over  the  back  of  the 
chimney. 

Painting.  That  this  was  not  unknown  in  New  Haven  is  proved 
by  the  court  record  of  February   14,    1647: 

"  The  Gouerner  acquainted  the  courte  that  the  Kinges  Amies 
are  cutt  by  Mr.  Mullyner  for  the  towne,  w'h  are  to  be  primed 
and  after  sett  vp  in  a  publique  convenient  place." ' 

Just  how  much  use  of  paint  in  the  domestic  work  this  old 
record  implies  we  can  not  say.  It  certainly  shows  that  the  ma- 
terial could  be  obtained  in   the  colony  of   New   Haven. 

Paint  was  not  used  in  houses  to  any  extent  till  late  in  the 
third  period  in  Connecticut,  for  there  are  many  fine  specimens 
of  pine  panelling  with  no  finish  upon  them.  They  do  not  need 
any.       The    wood    is    still    sound,    with    perfectly    sharp    edges,    and 

'  New  Haven  Col.  Rec,  I,  p.  369. 


268 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


the  coloring,  partly  from  age  and  sun,  partly  from  wood  smoke,  has 
become  something  very  beautiful,  unapproachable  by  any  painted 
or  varnished  surface. 

Alterations  and  additions.  These  were  far  more  common 
than  we  generally  have  been  accustomed  to  think  them,  and  they 
are  very  skillfully  handled. 

The  principal  early  addition  was  the  lean-to.  This  was  added 
generally  without  removing  the  clapboards  at  the  back  of  the 
main    house,   except   behind    the    chimney.     Here   the   old    covering 


A\AP.5n   HOV5L 


WtTrt[ynFiiu» 


Figure  112. 
(not  mf.asukei)  nor  dkawn  T(i  scale.) 


had  to  come  off  to  accommodate  the  workmen  who  built  into  the 
old  stack  the  new  flue  coming  from  the  added  fireplace  for  the 
new  kitchen.  The  Whitman  house  is  an  excellent  example  of 
this. 

The  addition  of  another  room  at  the  end  of  one  of  the  houses 
of  the  old  type,  an  addition  which  was  itself  of  the  third  period, 
may  be  seen  in  the  old  Burnham- Marsh  house  in  Wethersfield. 
The  sketch  in  Figure  1 1 2  will  make  the  new  arrangement,  which 
sought  a  passage   through   the  house,  much   plainer  than  any  words 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  269 

can.  The  old  stair  is  gone  and  the  new  one  is  pushed  off  to 
one  side,  since  evidently  the  idea  of  an.  artistic  stair  did  not  weigh 
against  the  cost  of  the  room  it  would  take.  This  side  arrange- 
ment of  the  stairs  appears  in  the  Sheldon  house  in  Hartford. 
The  change  in  the  Marsh  house  was  made  about  1750  or  pos- 
sibly later. 

A  very  skillful  addition,  or  rather  series  of  additions,  is  in  the 
Elm  Tree  Inn  at  Farmington,  which  we  have  already  mentioned. 
The  later  long  passage  is  very  finely  used  to  lead  up  to  the 
ancient  staircase  without  disturbing  the  position  of  the  latter,  and 
without  breaking  the  effect  of  the  wide  hall,  as  the  side -wall  stair- 
case often  undeniably  does. 

Moving  houses  is  not,  as  some  may  think,  a  modern  accom- 
plishment only.  We  have  a  case  mentioned  in  the  New  Haven 
records  : 

"  Allen  Ball  ....  said  the  house  was  vncomfortable  to 
live  in  because  of  the  chimney  and  the  sellar  is  falling  downe, 
that  workemen  saye  it  will  cost  20'  to  sett  it  in  repaire,  therefore 
he  thinkes  it  is  the  best  way  to  take  downe  the  ptitions  w'hin  & 
make  a  barne  of  it,  &  if  ther  be  cause,  it  maye  be  removed  of 
the  sellar." ' 

No  one  can  remember  when  the  Gleason  house  was  on  the 
street,  but  tradition  claims  that  it  was  there,  and  the  loss  of  its 
chimney    makes    it    look    probable    that    it    has    been    moved. 

The  fact  that  the  framing  of  a  house  was  changed  at  times 
is  shown  by  the  new  summer  in  the  parlor  chamber  of  the  John 
Barnard  house.  A  change  in  the  timbering  of  a  stone  house,  or  a 
renewal,  such  as  has  taken  place  in  the  Whitfield  as  the  result  of  a 

'  March  6,  1648.     Ntw  Haven  Colonial  Records,  I,  p.  444. 


270  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

fire,  is  much  easier  to  execute  than  such  an  alteration  in  a  wooden 
dwelling. 

Tools.  We  do  not  mean  to  inflict  upon  our  readers  a  com- 
plete list  of  the  tools  mentioned  in  the  old  inventories.  The 
craftsmen  of  that  day  had  all  the  tools  we  possess  except,  of 
course,  such  modern  devices  as  the  ratchet  brace  or  the  extension 
bit.  The  work  these  men  left  behind  them  shows  that  they  were 
not  lacking  in  tools  any  more  than  in  technical  knowledge. 

The  value  of  a  carpenter's  set  of  tools  varied  somewhat.  Rich- 
ard Beckly,  who  died  in  1690,  and  who  was  an  old  man,  had  tools 
worth  ^i.'  Henry  Wells,  of  Wethersfield,  who  died  in  1678,  had 
a  set  rated  at  ^3.'  In  the  estate  of  James  Hayward,  of  New 
Haven,  were  "carpenter's  tools  and  lumber"  valued  at  £^j  iSs 
o~id?  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  whether  lumber  here  is 
used  in  its  English  sense  of  trash,  or  whether  we  have  in  it  an 
instance  of  an  older  English  usage,  which,  transplanted  hither,  has 
become  a  so-called  Americanism.  That  is,  may  the  word  mean 
timber  and  boards  ?  It  seems  hardly  possible  that  any  tools  would 
foot  up  to  ^57,  equivalent  to  a  large  sum  of  our  money.  Yet 
that  must  have  been  the  case,  if  lumber  meant  trash,  unless  Mun. 
son  and  Andrews,  themselves  carpenters,  set  a  high  value  on  that 
trash. 

Richard  Lyman,^  in  1641,  left  two  saws,  i6.f,  a  broad -axe,  two 
narrow  axes,  a  "  wimbell  &  chessells."  These  are  tools  any  house- 
holder would  be  apt  to  have.  The  wimble,  sometimes  called  a 
wimble -stock,  was   what  we   call   a   "brace"   or  bit-stock.      It   held 


■  Probate  Records  at   Hartford. 

'AVii'   Haven   Col.  Kec.,  I,  pp.  479-80. 

^Conn.  Col.  Rec,  vol.  I,  p.  445. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  271 

a  bit  —  called  in  a  Providence  inventory  a  "wimble  bitt," '  —  with 
which   the   hole  was  bored. 

James  Olmstead's  inventory,*  September  28,  1640,  contains:  two 
handsaws,  one  framing-saw,  one  hack-saw,  the  four  valued  at 
^i  ;  also  wimbles,  chisels,  hammers,  and  pincers,  valued  at  ly. 
The  framing- saw  we  already  know.  The  hack  saw  is  not  easily 
explained,  except  in  its  modern  meaning  as  a  tool  for  sawing 
metal. 

In  the  estate  of  Edward  Veir,  Wethersfield;^  July  19,  1645,  were 
Two  small  saws,  lOne  long  plane,  two  old  small  planes,  one  pricker, 
one  chisel,  two  small  augers.  The  long  plane  was  either  a  jointer 
or  a  "shooter,"  as  it  is  still  called  in  England,  which  is  still  longer 
than  a  jointer.^  The  short  planes  may  have  been  "jack"  planes 
or  smoothing  planes.  The  pricker  was  a  scratch -awl.  The  augers 
differed  from  the  wimble  in  being  of  long  shank,  with  a  cross-bar 
at  the  end,  and  were  worked  with  both  hands  as  they  are  now. 
They  were  used  in  making  mortises,  and  in  boring  holes  for  tree- 
nails or  pins. 

John  Purkas,  Hartford,  1645,  and  Timothy  Standly,  probably 
of  Farmington,  1648,  each  possessed  a  cross-cut  saw.  These  large 
saws  were  used  for  lumbering,  or  for  cutting  up  wood  on  the 
farm  as   well   as  for  framing. 

Richard  Pyper  had  a  tennant  or  tenon  saw,  which  either 
was    what   we   call    a   back    saw  or  was   our  panel   saw,  for  cutting 


'  "  A  wimble  stock.  3  wimble  bitts,"  inventory  of  Epenetus  Olr.ey,  169S.  Prov.  Rec,  VI,  p. 
2r4.     See  inv.  of  Sam.  Winsor,  1705.     Jhid,  p.  246. 

'  Conn.  Col.  Rec  ,  vol.  I.  p.  448. 

'  The  same,  p.  464. 

^The  "joynter"  occurs  in  Sam.  Winsor's  inv.,  cited  above.  These  men  had  the  plough,  too, 
for  a  "joynter  Plow"  is  in  the  same  inv.,  p.  248.  See  the  same  vol.  of  Prov.  Rec,  p.  150.  A 
"  halveing  plane"  occurs  in  some  inventory,  the  reference  to  which  has  escaped  us 


272  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

tenons.  He  had  also  a  froe,  which  was  a  sort  of  inverted 
reaping  hook,  Figure  107,  for  cleaving  barrel -staves  and  clap- 
boards. 

Governor  Eaton  left  quite  an  assortment  of  carpenter's  tools 
in  his  large  estate.'  The  nails  alone  are  appraised  at  /^4  i^s 
08^/.  Of  tools  he  had  a  whetstone,  two  iron  squares,  two  hand- 
saws, a  framing-saw,  three  axes,  six  hatchets,  an  adze,  a  pair  of 
pincers,  a  drawing- shave,  two  whipsaws,  a  block -saw,  two  prisers, 
a  set  for  a  saw,  a  chisel,  an  iron  crow  weighing  thirteen  pounds, 
a  srindstone  — "  sfrindlestone  "  the  text  has  it  —  and  a  timber-chain. 

The  drawing-shave  was  the  same  as  our  drawing-knife.  The 
whipsaw  was  a  two-handed  ripping  saw.  The  block -saw  had  a 
piece  on  the  upper  edge  like  what  we  call  a  back  saw. 

An  examination  of  the  inventories  of  all  the  men  known  to  have 
been  carpenters  would  extend  this  list  to  a  great  length.  Francis 
Stiles,  of  Windsor,  who  came  from  London ;  Jarvis  Boykin  from 
Charing  in  Kent  —  his  inventory  at  New  Haven  tells  nothing — 
William  Andrews,  of  New  Haven;  George  Clark,  of  Milford ; 
William  Pantry,  of  Hartford;  John  Elderkin,  of  New  London 
and  Norwich;  and  a  host  of  others  might  be  made  to  tell  us 
more  or  less  of  their  lives  through  what  they  left  behind  them. 
It  were  much  to  be  desired  that  they  could  tell  us  from  what 
part  of  England  they  each  came,  and  who  were  their  apprentices 
here. 

III.      Iron -Work. 

The  manufacture  of  iron  did  not  begin  at  New  Haven  till 
about    sixteen    years    after    the    beginning    of    the    settlement.      In 

'  See  Appendix. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


273 


1655  John  Winthrop  the  younger,  and  Stephen  Goodyear,  one 
of  the  London  merchants  who  were  of  the  first  settlers  of  Quin- 
nipiac,  established  iron -works  at  the  southern  end  of  what  is  now 
Lake  Saltonstall.'  Bog -ore  furnished  the  raw  material,  and  the 
fuel  was  charcoal.'  Governor  Eaton  was  interested  in  the  enter- 
prise, for  in  his  inventory  is  recorded  :  "  Itm  for  disbursments 
to  the  iron  worke  "] £   \os  oodT 

A  few  years  afterward  the  works  were  let  to  Captain  Clark 
and  a  Mr.  Payne  of  Boston.^  In  behalf  of  this  Thomas  Clark 
"master  of  the  Iron  Workes  of  N:  Haven,"  William  Andrews, 
the  carpenter,  petitioned  the  General  Court  of  Connecticut  in 
1669,  and  that  court,  on  May  13,  voted  that  the  "persons  & 
estates  constantly  and  onely  employed  in  the  sayd  worke  .  .  . 
shall  be  and  are  hereby  exempted  from  payeing  country  rates  for 
seuen  years  next  ensuing."'*  Lambert  says  that  the  business  was 
abandoned  in    1679,  on  the  death  of  the  principal  workmen.'' 

Thomas  Nash,  who  came  with  Whitfield,  in  July,  1639,  left 
the  Guilford  planters,  and  settled  in  New  Haven.  He  was  a 
smith ;  so  that,  at  least,  one  of  the  trade  was  present  in  early 
Ouinnipiac.''     John  Potter  appears  as  a  smith  at  Branford  in   1660." 

At  Hartford,  Thomas  Hurlbut  and  Peter  Bassaker,  whose  name 
has  rather  a  French  sound,  appear  to  have  been  of  this  trade  as 
early  as  1643.  Joseph  Nash,  also,  was  probably  a  smith.  The 
town   of    Hartford   gave    him,   in    1671,   liberty   to   set   up   a   shop,   it 


'  Atwater,  Hisloty  of  the  Colony  of  New  Haven,  p.  224. 

'  Lambert,  History  of  New  Haven,  p.  S4.     Atwater,  as  above. 

'Atwater,  as  above,  p.  225. 

*  Conn    Col.  Records,  H,  p.  108. 

*  Lambert,  as  above,  p.  84. 
^Atwater,  as  above,  pp.  125,  162-3. 

'Rev.  E.  C.  Baldwin,  N.  H.  Hist.  -Soc.  Papers,  vol.  Ill,  p.  259. 


274  EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 

is  not  said  what  for,  on  tlie  town  land.'  We  can  find  no  trace  of 
iron -works  in   the   River  towns   till    1710. 

In  New  London  we  find  William  Cheseborough,  who  had  set- 
tled at  Wequetequock,  and  whom  the  General  Court  compelled 
to  live  in  New  London  on  account  of  their  fear  that  he  would 
mend  guns  for  the  Indians.-  Griswell  and  Parkes  also  appear  as 
contractors  for  the  iron-work  of  the  house  to  be  built  "for  the 
ministry,"  in    1662.^ 

When  we  turn  from  the  material  to  the  finished  product  we 
find  no  little  artistic  ability  as  well  as  unusual  skill.  Of  course 
all  the  traditions  of  the  work  were  English  except,  perhaps,  in  the 
case  of  Bassaker. 

All  NAILS  were  made  by  hand.  They  were  probably  made  by 
special  craftsmen  as  well  as  by  the  smiths,  as  in  Rhode  Island, 
where  "  Naylor  Tom "  was  familiar  in  the  Narragansett  country. 
Peter  Bassaker,  and  possibly  Thomas  Hurlbut,  whom  we  named 
above,  may  perhaps  have  been  such  artisans.  For,  when  Hurlbut 
was  fined  for  overcharging,  the  court  agreed  to  remit  his  fine  if 
Bassaker,  who  intended  to  try  the  experiment,  could  not  "  make 
nayles  w"*  less  losse  and  at  as  cheape  a  rate."  If  Bassaker  suc- 
ceeded, the  court  would  double  the  fine.^ 

Hinges  were  of  iron  and  were  of  various  forms.  One  of  the 
oldest,  as  well  as  the  most  common,  is  the  long  strap  form,  with 
or  without  ornamentation  at  the  end,  fastened  to  the  wood  of  the 
door  by  heavy-headed  nails,  and  with  its  eye  hung  over  a  staple 
in   the  jamb.     An  example  of  this  kind,  from   the   Patterson  house, 

'Conn.  Hist.  Soc,  CoUeclions,  VI,  p.  164. 

"Miss  Caullvins,  History  of  New  London,  pp.  qy-ioo. 

^  The  same,  pp.  139-140. 

*  Conn    Col.  Kec,  I,  pp.  81,  102. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


275 


is  given  in  Figure  113.  The  shape  and  size  varied,  of  course, 
with  the  weight  of  the  door.  We  have  never  seen  in  Connecticut 
the  fleur-de-lys  which  appears  at  the  end  of  the  hinge  of  the  front 
door  in  the  Arthur  Fenner  house,  Cranston,  in    Rhode   Island. 

The  HL  hinge,  as  it  is  called,  appears,  but  it  is  a  late  form. 
A  fine  example,  which  we  give  in  Figure  113,  is  on  the  parlor 
door  of  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge  house  in  Hartford.  It  is  the 
e.\act  counterpart  of  one  from  Oundle,  Northamptonshire,  shown 
by  Gotch,'  and  of  one  given   by   Nevill.-     The  pattern,  which  goes 


'::!  T'cM 


Figure  113.— Handles   and   Hinges. 


back  to  Roman  times,  is  supposed  to  represent  a  cock's  head. 
This  particular  specimen  came,  we  are  inclined  to  think,  from 
the  house  of  Governor  Edward  Hopkins,  which  stood  where  the 
Sheldon  Woodbridge  now  is,  or  near  the  same  site.  Nevill  says 
these  old  hinges  were  tinned  over,  and  this  one  may  be,  under 
the  paint  which  now  covers  it.     We  know  one  example  in   Massa- 


'  J.  .Alfred  Gotch,  Architecture  of  the  Renaissance  in   England.  Part   I.  p.   II. 
'  R.  Nevill,  Old  Cottage  Arch.,  etc.,  in   Surrey,  pp.  45-6. 


276 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


chusetts   which   is    tinned.      The  existence  of   such   a    plating    goes 
to  show  that  these  specimens  were  imported. 

LocK-PLATES  AND  LATCHES  show 'somc  very  good  forms,  most 
of  them  quite  late,  for  many  of  the  early  latches  were  wooden 
and  had  no  locks.'  What  the  early  ones  could  be  may  be  seen 
in   Figure    i  14,  where  is  given   the  elegant  lock-plate  from   a  trunk 


Figure  hj. 


in  the  rooms  of  the  New  Haven  Historical  Society,  with  1657 
formed  with  brass  nails  on  the  top  of  it.  The  inspiration  is  evi- 
dently English.  This  plate  should  be  compared  with  the  hinge 
in  the  Sheldon  Woodbridge  house.  In  Figure  113  we  give  the 
door-handle  and  plate  of  the  Patterson  house,  that  of  the  Meg- 
gatt,  and  that  of  the   Barrett.     We  should  like  to  remind  students. 


'An  iron  door-bar  is  mentioned  in  Ciovernor  Eaton's  inventory.     See  Appendix  HL 


EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  277 

and,  above  all,  collectors,  that  drawings  of  these  details  are  very 
useful  and  will  help  a  good  many  people,  while  the  thing  itself, 
if  taken  from  its  setting,  unless  that  is  ruinous,  can  help  only  a 
fad.  These  various  forms  of  art  among  our  forefathers  are  too 
little  studied.  The  smiths  who  wrought  these  bits  of  iron -work 
put  a  good  deal  of  honest  skill  into  them. 

Andirons.  Most  of  the  early  andirons  were,  no  doubt,  entirely 
of  iron,  as  the  name  implies  —  possibly  of  cast-iron,  too,  for  that 
material  was  used  for  andirons  as  far  back  as  the  13th  century. 
We  have  seen  none  in  Connecticut,  which  even  claimed  to  go  so 
far  back  as  the  time  of  our  own  early  settlements,  though  many 
are  no  doubt  in  existence. 

The  DOGS  were  of  iron.  These  were  a  lower  and  rougher 
sort  of  andirons,  which,  in  a  large  fireplace,  held  the  back -log, 
while  the  more  showy  andirons  carried  the  fore -log  and  its  com- 
panions. 

Fire-back.  This  is  another  piece  of  mediaeval  iron-work  which 
the  wealthier  of  our  ancestors  used,  though  instances  of  it  are  very 
rare.  One  came  to  light  during  some  repairs  at  the  Pickering 
house,  in  Salem,  with  the  date  1661  upon  it;  and  one  is  .mentioned 
in  Governor  Eaton's  inventory  as  belonging  in  "Mrs.  Eaton's  cham- 
ber." They  were  of  cast-iron,  not  always  as  large  as  the  back  of 
the  fireplace,  and  stood  behind  the  andirons  or  behind  the  dogs 
to  protect  the  brick  or  stone. 

Cranes.  It  would  be  interesting  to  know  exactly  when  these 
came  in.  They  probably  were  not  used  by  the  early  settlers.  Bars 
across  the  flues,  with  long  trammels  or  hangers,  which  by  the 
way  occur  very  rarely  in  the  inventories,  held  the  pots  and  kettles 
over  the  fire.  We  occasionally  meet  with  old  cranes  in  the  garrets, 
but  they  are  impossible   to  date. 


278  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

IV.      Brass- Work. 

Brass  pots,  pans,  and  kettles  were  common.  Brass  andirons 
also  occur  in  Governor  Eaton's  inventory.  Brass  door-handles 
appear  in  the  third  period. 


EARI.Y     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  279 


APPENDIX 


THE   JOSEPH    WHITING    HOUSE.' 

It  is  possible  that  Andrew  Bacon  himself  built  this  house.  He 
owned  two  acres  in  a  narrow  strip  extending  along  Main  street 
from  the  present  Sheldon  street  to  what  is  now  Charter  Oak 
avenue,  and  upon  this  land  stood  his  dwelling-house.  Where  did 
it  stand?  Porter,  in  his  map  of  Hartford  in  1642,  places  the 
building  at  the  north  end  of  the  lot.  It  must,  therefore,  either 
have  faced  north  on  Sheldon  street,  as  he  has  made  several  other 
houses  to  face,  or  it  looked  west  on  Main.  The  northern  exposure 
was  one  which  no  seventeenth  century  builder,  so  far  as  we  have 
seen,  ever  adopted.  Is  it  possible  that  all  the  houses  on  these 
lots  faced  south  upon  Charter  Oak  avenue  ?  In  that  case  this 
Whiting  house  would  be  identical  with  that  of  Bacon  and  would 
date  from  1639.  Porter,  indeed,  was  a  careful  worker,  and  prob- 
ably had  access  to  sources  now  lost  to  us.  The  fact  that  Bacon 
sold  the  south  end  of  his  lot  as  early  as  1650,  while  he  did  not 
go  to  Hadley  till  1659,  and  thus  must  have  kept  an  abiding- 
place  ;  and,  further,  the  possibility  that  his  house  faced  on  Main 
street,  are  in  favor  of   Porter's  location.     The  reader  may   take  his 

'  Through    an   error,    the   inventory   of   Governor    Eaton    is   referred    to  by   the   text,  as   in    .Ap- 
pendix I.     It  will  be  found  in  Appendix  III. 


280  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

own    view.     The    fact   that    this    house    does    not    face    Main    street 
makes  us  incline  to  the  eadier  date. 

The  followinsf  extracts  from  the  land  records  of  Hartford  bear 
upon  this  property : 

1.  In   February,  1639. 

"  Severall  parcells     ....     belongiiis^  to  Andrew   Bakon. 

viz  :  One  parcell  on  which  his  dwelling  house  now  standith  with  other 
outhouses  yards  or  gardens  therein  being,  containeinge  by  estimation  two  acres 
mor  or  lesse,  abutting  upon  the  highway  lying  on  the  South  side  of  the  little 
river  on  the  North  and  on  the  highway  from  (leorg  Steels  to  the  South 
Meadow  on  the  South,  and  on  the  highway  leading  from  the  Towne  toward 
Wethersfield   on   the   West,    and   on    Nath    Wards   land   on   the   east." 

Hartford    Land    Records,  Distriljutions,  p.  251. 

2.  In  January,   1650. 

"  Land    in    Hartford      ....     belonging   to    Lfrances    Barnard 

viz  :  One  psell  on  which  his  dwelling  house  now  standeth  with  other  out- 
houses, yerdes  or  gardins  thare  in  being  contan  by  estma.  two  roodes  be  it 
more  or  les,  partt  w-here  of  he  bought  of  Andrew  Backen,  abutting  on  the 
hyway  ledding  from  the  bredg  toward  Wethersfield  on  the  West,  and  on  the 
hyway    leding    into    the    South    IMedow    on    the    south   and    on   Andrew    Backens 

land  on   the  north." 

Hartford  Land  Records,  Distributions,  p.  4S3. 

3.  March    15,   1667. 

"  Land     ....      to   /achary   Sandford 

more  one  parcell  of  land  with  a  messuage  or  tenement  standing  there  cm 
which  he  bought  of  Francis  Barnard  contayning  by  estimation  two  roods  be 
it  more  or  less  and  abutteth  on  land  sometime  Andrew  Bacon's  on  the  North, 
and  on  the  highway  leading  to  Wethersfield  on  the  West,  and  on  the  highway 
leading  to  the  south  meadow  on  the  South,  and  on  the  pound   East." 

Hartford   Land  Records,  Distributions,  p.  399. 

4.  April  21,  1682. 

"  Land     ....     to  M'  Joseph  Whiting 

One  parcell   of   land   with  a   messuage  or  Tenement  standing  thereon   which 


EARLV  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  281 

he  bought  of  Zachary  Sandford  containing  by  estimation  Two  roods  be  it  more 
or  less,  abutting  on  land  sometime  Andrew  Bacons  on  the  North  on  a  high 
way  leading  to  Wethersfield  on  the  west,  &  on  a  high  way  leading  into  the 
South  meadow  on  the  south,  &  on   the  pow'nd  on  the  East." 

Hartford   Land  Records,  vol.  I,  p.  69. 


282 


KARI.Y    CONNKCTICUT     IKH'SKS. 


APPENDIX   II 


THE    WEBSTER    HOUSES. 


(H\     UK.   HE^h^     ItAKNAKU   OK    HAKTFoRD.) 


Robert  Webster,  son  of  Governor  John  Webster,  died  in  Hart- 
ford in  1676,  in  possession  of  a  large  estate,  leaving  ten  children, 
and  making  his  wife,  Susannah  Treat  Webster,  his  sole  executrix. 
A   portion   of  this  estate  is   represented  in   the  diagram   below. 

On    this    portion    stand    three    houses,    in    none    of    which    did 

his  father,  Governor  John  Webster,  ever 
live.  Governor  Webster's  home  lot  was 
on  the  same  plot  with  Governor  Wyllys' 
(directly  east  of  my  residence),  on  the 
street  now  known  as  Governor  street,  and 
the  house,  which  I  recollect  as  far  back  as 
1S17,  when  I  clambered  over  the  fence  to 
play  with  the  Hinsdale  boys,  was  always 
known  to  me  as  "  the  Webster  house."' 
His  residence  there,  until  his  removal  to  Hadley  in  1659- '60,  as 
one  of  the  four  governors  ( Hopkins,  Wyllys,  Webster,  and  -Sey- 
mour)  living  on  it,  has  given  the  street  its  present  name. 

Susannah  Treat  Webster,  by  will  made  January  23,  169S,  Hart- 
ford  Probate   Records,  vol.  7,  gave  to  the  children  of  her  son  John 


Figure  hS— The  Webster  Estate. 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  283 

Webster,  deceased  (viz.,  John,  Ebenezer,  Jacob,  Daniel,  Sarah,  Ann, 
and  Abagail),  in  the  right  of  their  father,  "all  that  capital  mes- 
suage' (manor  house  or  family  home),  tenement,  barn,  out-houses, 
and  eight  acres  of  land,  being  part  of  the  home  lot  of  my  de- 
ceased husband." 

Medad  Webster,  Hartford  Land  Records,  January  7,  1786,  as 
administrator  of  the  estate  of  Ebenezer  Webster,  deceased  (son  of 
John),  sells  to  Captain  John  Barnard  "one  parcel  of  land,  being 
part  of  the  home  lot  of  said  Ebenezer  Webster  deceased,  with  the 
dwelling  house  standing  thereon,  containing  three  and  one-half 
acres,  bounded  south  on  the  highway,  west  on  that  part  of  the 
lot  sold  to  Stebbins  Wilson,  north  on  Barzilla  Hudson's  land,  and 
east  on  the  said  John  Barnard's  land."  This  house  (I)  is  still 
standing,  and  known  as  the  Dorus  Barnard  house  —  so  called  be- 
cause it  was  owned  and  occupied  by  Dorus  Barnard,  oldest  son  of 
Captain   John   Barnard,  who  deeded  it  to  his  son   Dorus  in    1S04. 

Susannah  Treat  Webster  gave  to  her  son  Jonathan  Webster 
"  eight  acres  of  my  home  lot,  as  he  now  hath  it  fenced  in  and 
improved,  with  his  dwelling  house,  barn,  out-houses" — and  from 
her  deed  to  him  dated  January  20,  169S,  Hartford  Land  Records, 
this  piece  was  bounded  "  northerly  on  land  belonging  to  James 
Steele  Sr.,  easterly  on  land  belonging  to  Samuel  Webster,  south- 
erly on  land  belonging  to  the  heirs  of  her  son  John  Webster  de- 
ceased,  and    westerly   on    a    highway."      This    house    (H)    is    known 


'The  words  capital  messuage — "that  occupied  by  the  owner  of  a  property  containing  several 
messuages" — (Murray,  New  English  Diet.,  called  O.xford  Diet.)  identify,  beyond  question,  this 
house  as  the  dwelling  of  Robert  Webster. 

Messuage  means:  "In  law,  a  dwelling-house,  with  the  adjacent  buildings  and  curtilage,  ap- 
propriated to  the  use  of  the  household  ;  a  manor-house."  It  is  derived,  like  a  host  of  other 
medieval  words  for  house,  niansio,  manstis,  mansiira,  Htiisura,  iiiaiisionalieiiiii,  manstiagium, 
though  more  obscurely  than  they,  from  the  classical  Latin  verb  manere,  to  remain.  The  meJi.^val 
Latin  form  of  it  is  iiiessua^inm. — •.\in'HORS'   Note. 


284  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

as  the  Grove  Barnard  liouse  —  so  named  because  owned  and  occu- 
pied by  Grove  Barnard,  second  son  of  Captain  John  Barnard,  by 
whom  it  was  deeded  in  1804.  Tlie  house  is  no  longer  standing, 
but  the  property  is  still  in  the  possession  and  occupancy  of  his 
descendants. 

Susannah  Treat  Webster,  by  will  made  January  23,  1698,  gave 
to  her  son  Samuel  Webster  "  eight  acres  of  my  home  lot  as  he 
now  hath  it  fenced  in  with  his  dwelling  house,  out-houses  "  —  and 
from  her  deed  to  him,  of  same  date  as  preceding,  it  was  bounded 
"  northerly  on  land  belonging  to  James  Steele,  easterly  on  land 
belonging  to  Mr.  Thomas  Hooker,  southerly  on  a  highway,  and 
westerly  on  lands  (of  the  same  lot)  which  she  hath  set  out  and 
given  to  her  son  Jonathan  Webster  and  to  the  heirs  of  her  son 
John  Webster  deceased."  The  house  (III)  on  this  property  is 
known  as  the  Captain  John  Barnard  house,  who  came  into  its 
possession   in    1765   in   the  following  manner: 

Samuel  Webster,  having  no  children,  by  will  left  his  dwelling- 
house  and  homestead  to  Matthew  and  Medad,  the  two  eldest  sons 
of  his  nephew  Ebenezer  Webster,  deceased  (son  of  John) — ^ after 
his  wife's  decease.  Medad  Webster,  Hartford  Land  Records,  April 
6,  1 747,  for  /,  60  paid  by  Matthew  Webster,  quitclaims  a  parcel 
of  land  containing  one-half  acre,  "being  part  of  the  messuage  or 
home  lot  lately  belonging  to  Samuel  Webster  deceased,  with  the 
mansion  house  (HI),  barn,  and  other  buildings  thereon  erected. 
The  said  one-half  acre  is  bounded  east  and  north  on  land  owned 
in  common  by  Matthew  and  Medad  Webster,  west  on  land  of 
Ebenezer  Webster,  south  on  a  highway,  and  extends  in  length 
from  east  to  west  ten  rods,  and  in  breadth  from  the  highway 
south  eight  rods  north." 

Medad   Webster,    Hartford    Land    Records,    December    17,    1750, 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  285 

sells  to  Matthew  Webster  a  parcel  of  land  containing  seven  and 
one -half  acres,  the  remainder  of  the  eight- acre  lot  belonging  to 
Samuel  Webster. 

Matthew  Webster,  Hartford  Land  Records,  October  8,  1762, 
sells  to  Jonathan  Bigelow  "a  piece  of  land  containing  by  estima- 
tion one  acre  and  three  roods,  with  a  mansion  house  (III)  and 
barn  thereon  erected,  bounded  north  on  land  of  James  liunce, 
west  partly  on  land  of  Jacob  Webster  and  partly  on  land  of 
Ebenezer  Webster,  south  on  a  highway,  and  east  on  land  of 
Moses  Taylor." 

Matthew  Webster  had  previously  sold,  from  the  eight -acre  lot 
that  belonged  to  Samuel   Webster,  pieces  as  follows : 

1.  Thirty  square  rods  from  the  south-east  corner  of  the  lot  to 
Moses  and  Jemima  Taylor,  April  3,  1752  (afterwards  land  of 
James   Barnard). 

2.  Three   acres   and    one    rood    to    James    Steele,    February    29, 

1756. 

3.  One  acre  to  James  Steele,  May    i,   1756. 

4.  One  acre  to  James   Bunce,  July  5,    1757. 

Jonathan  Bigelow,  of  Hartford,  Hartford  Land  Records,  Octo- 
ber 29,  1765,  sells  to  John  Barnard,  Jr.,  of  Hartford,  "one  certain 
messuage  or  lot  of  land  containino-  two  acres  more  or  less,  bounded 
south  on  the  county  road,  east  on  Moses  Taylor's  land,  north  on 
James  Bunce's  land,  and  west  partly  on  the  widow  Powel's  land 
and  partly  on  land  of  Ebenezer  Webster,  and  is  the  same  mes- 
suage in  which  the  said  John  now  lives,  together  with  all  the 
buildings  and  edifices  thereon." 

John  Barnard,  Jr.  (Captain  John  Barnard  of  Indian  and  Revo- 
lutionary war  service),  from  year  to  year  purchased  in  various  lots 
the  property  direct  from  the  heirs  of  John   Webster,  or  parties   to 


286  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     IIOUSKS. 

whom  they  had  sold  their  portions  of  the  estate  of  Robert  Webster; 
so  that  in  1S04  he  was  in  possession  of  the  entire  estate.  In  that 
year  he  conveys  portions  of  the  same  as  follows:  To  Dorus  Bar- 
nard, April  19;  Grove  Barnard,  April  19;  Chauncey  Barnard,  Oc- 
tober 10;  James  Barnard,  May  15,  1S05;  continuing  himself  in 
occupancy  of  the  messuage,  which  by  his  will  of  1S13  becomes 
in  part  the  property  of  his  son  John  Barnard.  On  his  son  John's 
death  it  continued  in  the  occupancy  of  his  daughters  Cecelia  and 
Lavinia  Barnard ;  and  on  their  death,  by  their  joint  will,  it  was 
conveyed  to  the  children  of  their  sister,  Mrs.  Delia  Cone,  namely: 
Mrs.  Ella  B.  Pratt  and  John  Barnard  Cone,  he  holding  the  por- 
tion on   which  stands  the   house  of  Captain  John    Barnard. 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES.  28'i 


APPENDIX   III. 


Note. — A  single  star  means  an  omission  in  the  original  ;  a  double  star  means  undecipherable 
The  sign  |  before  and  after  a  word  or  words  means  that  those  words  are  interlined  in  the  original. 
The  original  MS  was  copied  for  us  from  the  New  Haven  Probate  Records  by  Miss  Louise  Tracy, 
of  New  Haven. 


An  Inventory  of  the  estate  of  the  Honourable  Theophilus 
Eaton  Esqr  the  late  Governour  of  Newhaven  Colony,  deceased, 
taken,  and  apprized  by  Mathew  Gilbert,  Jo:  Wakeman  and  Rich- 
ard  Miles  in   the   twelveth   moneth  :     1657. 

£      s     d 
Imprimis,  all  his  weareing  .Apparell  ------      050    00    00 

Itm  in  plate      -----------       107     11     00 

Itm  in  a  piece  of  gold  20'  &  in  silver  25'      -         -         -         -         - 

Itm  in   2  signet  rings  of  gold    -         -  _         -         -         -         - 

Itm    in    provisions    for   the    ffamily   of    wine,   malt,   butter,    cheese, 

beife,  porke,  etc         --------- 

Itm   3  barr  of  beife,  &  a  barrell  of  porke        ----- 

Itm  a     "  hides  of  tanned  leather 

Itm   nailes  of  divers  sorts         -------- 

Itm  Gun  powder;    shott  mark   &   bullitts         ----- 

Itm  candles,  hopps,  &  sope       -------- 

Itm  about  3  hundred  weight  of  sugar     ------ 

Itm,  Ginger,  .\llom,  gaules,  gum,  copperis  &  glew  -         -         -         - 

Itm.  20  bush  :  of  salt        -         -         -         -  -         -         -         -         -        04    00    00 

Itm.    buttons   silk,    ribbing,   thrid,    tape,    girtwebb,    hookes   &    eves 

small   line,  twine,,  pins  poj'nts  &  *    -         -         -         -         -         -        02,  09,   00 

It,  about   160"'  of  cotton   woole  -         -         -         -         ■  -         -         10.  00.   00 


!02 

°S 

00 

02 

12 

00 

35- 

00 

00 

10. 

10. 

00 

1 1 

00 

00 

04, 

IS, 

oS 

o'> 

02. 

00 

OS 

'S, 

00 

08, 

00, 

00 

01, 

08. 

oi 

288  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

£  s  "' 

It.  2   yards  of  broad  cloth  &  6  yards  of  kersy        -         -         .  -  02.  16.  00 

It  5  yards  of  w'  cotton  shagg,  &   2  yards  &   half  caiivis         -         -  ci.  06  08. 

It.  6  yards  A  of  stuff  &  2  yards  J  |of  |  callicoe  -  -  -  -  01.  08.  00 
It.  a  remnant  of  taffaty  sarsnet,  &   2  remnants  of  bolting  cloath  & 

a  little  remnant  of  stuff     --------  00,  05  00 

It  31   yards  of  bockrum    -         - -         -  03.  05.  00 

It.  2  pe  woosted  stockings,  &   i  pe.  |of|   woolen  stockens  6  pe  Irish 

stockens, —  2  pe  of  leather  stockin's  -         -         -         -         -  01.  11.  08 

Itm.  3""  of  lead,  &   12"'  of  soder       -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  13.  02 

It  a  bridle,  &  a.   pe  of  stirrups,  leathers  &   3  brushes     -         -         -  00  06  06 

268  00  03 

Itm,  3.  pe  of  sheares,  a.  pe  of  sizers,  &   |a|   rasor    -         -         -         .  00.  06,  04 

Itm,  4   knives,  a.  pen  knife,  &  whetston   ------  00.  05.  00 

Itm,  a.  pe  of  garden  sheares,  3  sickles,  &  5   hooks  -         -         -  00.  oS.  06 

It,  2   iron  squares,   2   hand  sawes,  a  frameing  saw,  3  axes,  3  hoes., 

6    hachets,   3    bills,   an   adds,   a.  pe   of    pinchers    &    a    drawing 

shave  -----------  02.  16.  00 

It.    2    sithes,    2    whip   sawes,   a    block   saw,    2    ston    axes    with    brick, 

axes,  &  trowells  -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  03  oS  00 

Itm.  a  surveying  compass  &  chaine         -         -         -         -  -         -  01  00  00 

Itm.  a  napkin   press,  a  cheese  board   &  2  boles       -         -         -         -  00  05  00 

Itm.  2  cart  ropes,  a  stone  Jugge.  &   2  Jarrs   -         -         -         -         -  00  1 2  co 

Itm.  2   dialls,  &   2   pe  of  snuffers       -         -         -         -  .  .  -  00  04  06 

Itm   2**  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -  -02  10  00 

Itm  a  chaine   2  plow  shares  38."'  J  weight       -         -         -         -         -  01  01  10 

Itm  a  Iron  barr  of  a  door,  serching  iron,  in  2.  peeces'  ^^  -  -  00  10  00 
Itm.  an  iron  spoone,  &  an  old   mattock,  an   iron   wedg,  two  prisers, 

a  set  for  a  saw  &  a  chissell      -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  08  00 

Itm  a  hay  hooke,  &  a  marking  iron         -         -         -         -         -  -  00  02  04 

Itm.   2.  pe  of  brass  scales,  4  brass  weights,    15''  &   J  of  lead   &   a 

vice  of  31'.''  iron,  a  case   w'.''    i_ 

'  Blotted  in  original. 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


289 


Itm  a  standish   2  ink  homes,  a  paire  of  gold  weights 

Itm  a  wire  riddle,  an  iron  Crow  of   13"'  - 

Itm.  a  woolen  wheele,  4  Synes,  &  5  old  baggs 

Itm  228"  of  old  iron  in  the  counting  house   - 

Itm.  273"'  of  old  yron  in  the   ware  house 

Itm.  2  iron  beames,  &  3  scales         -         .         .         . 

Itm  a  cast  weight  °'  iron  of  half  a  hundred    - 

Itm  of  lead  weights  245"'  weight     -         -         -         - 

It.  for  iron  of  cart  wheeles  about  144"'  2^  8'  - 

It.  3  mattocks,  2  shovells,  2  pichforks  &  a  spade  '^  '^^ 

It.  a  beetle,  with  rings.  &  S.  iron  wedges  15'  - 

Itm.  a  stubbing  hoe,  &  a  plow  with  irons 


00  05  06 

CO  07  06 

00  II  g6 

03  16  GO 

04  10  00 

01  10  00 
00  03  04 
03  C I  03 

02  08  00 

CO  12  06 

00  15  00 

00  16  00 


Itm  36  quire  of    **    &   10  cask,  tubbs,  bucketts  iS:c       - 
Itm.  2   pe  of  racks  3  spitts,  a  Jack,  4  gridirons,  3  dripping  pans  5 
panns,  tongues,   bellowes,  smoothing  irons,  chaffing  dishes  fire- 
I  irons  I         ------..... 

It.  a  fish  plate,  an  appleroaster,  a  pe  snuffers,  a  lanthorne 

Itm.  a  still  --------... 

Itm.  a  chopping  board,  a  little  wheele,  an  old  cupboard 

Itm.  a  planke  upon  Tressills,  &  some  sawed  boards 

Itm.  7   earthen,  potts,  a  platter,  a  salt,  &  a  galley,  pott  - 

Itm.  a  little  brass  kettle,  a  little  brass  pan       -         .         .         .         . 

Itm.  a  little  trunke  with  a  drawer    ------- 

Itm.  a  emptj'  case  dv:  two  earthen,  potts  .         _         -         .         . 

Itm.  9  trayes,  a  platter,  3  little  basketts  &  a  voyder 

Itm  a  great  brass  kettle  --.--_.- 

Itm.  a  lesser  kettle  29^   J^   weight 

Itm.  a   litt  iron  pott   14°'  half    -------- 


c6  1 8  00 


04  18  00 

00  06  00 

01  00  00 
00  06  00 
oo  05  00 
00  04  00 
00  07  06 

00  03  GO 

00  02  00 

00  09  00 

Gl  12  GO 

00  13  04 

GG  06  O 


10   II 


It  A   little  kettle,  pott  mettall  9   "'  \  —  a  little  iro  pott    10"'    - 
Itm.  a   iron    posnett,  one   great  iron   pott,  50  "  weight,  a  brasspot 


00    08    06 
o  I     03    04 


2!)0  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


£ 


02     00     00 
00      1 2     00 


Itm.  one  frying  [lan  4'  2   little  brass  posnetts.  4'  6'|  3  brass  skimer 

|3'6''|         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  oc  1 2  00 

Itm    4    brass    hulles    3".    4    brass    candlesticks    4'    fishooks,    iV'    anle 

blade, (»'  13  00 

Itm  in  pewter  253]^  weight -  1515  00 

Itm.  a  clocke  &  a  brass  candlestick  at  Parlone  door      -         -         -  03  1 2  06 
Itm.   a  clieny  bason,  &   5    earthen    [wtts,    10   earthen   dishes  and   a 

box  with    10  trenchers       -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  01  00  00 

It.  2   warming  pans.  10'  a  ffowling  peice   30^  .         .         _ 

It.  a  barrell,  &  a  locke  for  a  fowling  peice      -         -         .         - 

It.  3  carbines  with   firelocks.  36^  4  machlock  gnnns  40^           -         -  03  16  00 

Itm.  4  swords,  &  a  belt  27^  a  fowling  jieece   i\;   a  sword   w'''  Joh'n 

**  on  35^            -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  03  02  00 

Itm  a  pe  of  pistoUs  with  holsters     -------  01  06  08 

Itm  5  pe  of  bandelears  &  a  powder  home 00  05  00 

Itm  3  old  holberds,  &  5       *       of       ** 00  08  00 

Itm.  in  the  greene  chamber,  a  Cyprus  chest    -         -         -         -         -  01  10  00 

Itm.  a  cubberd  with  drawers,  45'    a  short  table  6?  8^     -         -     '  -  02  i  i  08 

Itm.  a  Bedsteed   lo^    a  Tapestry  covering  for  a  bed  4^'         -         -  04  10  00 

Itm  a  Tapestry  Carpet  4'''  a  bed  coverlitt    13^  4^    -         -         -         -  04  13  04 

Itm  a  greene  cubberd  cloath  26^  8^    another  cubberd  cloth    15'     -  02  01  08 

Itm.  6  cushions  of  Turky  worke,  a  long  window  cushion       -         -  02  13  04 
Itm  2   needleworke  cushions,    16^    6  gree  |ne|  cushions  20^ 

Itm  a  Couch  with  the  appurtenances 

It.  a  greene  cubberd  cloath.  6^   8^  a  greene  carpen  fringed  301     -  01  16  08 

Itm.  2   white  blanketts      -         -         -         - 01  06  oS 

Itm.  a  red  cubberd  cloath  laced -  00  05  06 

Itm.  a  sett  of  currtens  with  vallens  —  fringed          -         -         -         -  01  10  00 

Itm.  a  downe  bed.  4  pillowes,  &  a  feather  bed  bolster  -         -         -  06  10  00 

Itm.  3  white  blankitts.  2!"   10?    arugg.  2!''  10!           -         -         -         -  05  00  00 

Itm  a  set  of  greene  curtins  &  vallans  fringed  &  laced            -         -  03  00  ocj 

Itm.  hangings  about  the  chamber    -         -         -         -         -         -         -  02  15 

Itm.  a.  ]5e  of  brass  .Andirons  doggs.  firepanns  &   tongues  of  brass  - 


01      10    00 

01      r  o     00 


(K) 
01  10       (JO 


EARI.V     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  291 

£       s       d 
Itin.  a  short  greene  Carpet  3*   4^  a  great  chaire,  &  2  little  chaires 

iSs      -         -         - 

Itm.  6  low  stooles  24?    alooking  glass   10?        - 

Itm  red  vallens,  cruell,  &  canvis      ------- 

Itm.  In  the  Blew  chamber,  a  cubberd  w^*"  drawers  .         -         - 

Itm.  a  bedsteed,  &  a  short  Table   15*   6'^  2   trunks,  &  a  iron  bound 

case  I265  e''  1        - 
Itm.  2  feather  bedds,  a  bolster,  &  2  pillows      ----- 

Itm  a  blew  rugge,  24^  acubberd  cloath  &  a  carpet   lo^ 

Itm.  hangings  about  the  chamber    ------- 

Itm.  3  pe  of  flaxen  sheets  36^  3  pe  hoUan  sheets  3]'*   10^ 

Itm.  g  pe  of  canvis  sheets  t,^   13^   10  pe  of  pillow  beares,  2* 

Itm   10  table  clothes  2?'   10!    6  short  towells  6!      -         -         -         - 

Itm  2  dossen  of  Table  napkins  of  cotton        ----- 

Itm.  I  dosen  of  table  napkins  of  bockrum       ----- 

Itm   I   dosen  of  blew  straked  napkins  %\  .         .         .         .         . 

Itm.  20.  white  sticht  napkins    -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -        00     10    00 

Itm.  a   long   Table   cloth,  a   short   table   cloth,  a   cubberd    cloth,  a 

towell.  &   18  napkins  all  of  Damask  -         -         -         -         -        05    07     00 

Itm.   a    long    table   cloth,  a    short    tablecloth    a    cubberd    cloth    a 

towell.  a  doss,  of  napkins  all  of  diaper     -         -         -         -         -         03     12    00 
Itm.    a    long    tablecloth,    a    short    tablecloth    a    cubberd    cloth,    a 

towell,  a  doss  of  napkins  all  of  diap.         -         -         -         -         -        02     12    00 
Itm.   a    short    tablecloth,  a  cubberd    cloth   a   towell   &    a   dosen   of 

napkins  of  dyaper      --------- 

Itm.  a  short  table  cloth,  a  cubberd  cloth  &  a  dosen  of  napkins  of 

flaxen  --.-..----- 

Itm   2  dosen  of  dyaper  napkins        .-.--_- 
Itm.  old  broken  linnen,  a  looking  glass,  «S:  3  brushes      -         -         - 
Itm.  In  the   Hall,  a  drawing  Table,  &  a  round  table        -         -         - 
Itm.  a  cubberd,  &  2  long  formes     ------- 

Itm  a  cubberd  cloth,  &  cushions  13^    4  setwork  cushions   12^ 
Itm.  6  greene  cushions   12?  a  great  chaire  w'-}^  needleworke  |  13^  4^  | 
Itm.   2   high  chaires   setwork   20?  4  high  stooles  setworke  |26^  8^  | 


01 

01 

04 

01 

14 

00 

00 

10 

00 

03 

06 

00 

02 

02 

00 

07 

'4 

00 

01 

10 

00 

01 

10 

00 

"5 

06 

00 

05 

13 

00 

02 

16 

00 

01 

00 

00 

00 

1  2 

00 

00 

oS 

uo 

01 

08 

00 

01 

02 

00 

01 

16 

00 

00 

oS 

06 

01 

18 

00 

00 

'4 

00 

01 

OS 

00 

0  1 

05 

04 

02 

06 

oS 

292  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

£  ^-  '/ 

Itm.  4  low  chaires  setworke  6*  8^    -         -         -         -         -         -         -  oi  o6  o8 

Itm.  2   low  stooles  set  worke    -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  oo  20  oo 

Itm.  2  Turky  Carpetts.  2!'''  6  highvvyne  stooles  6^             -         .          .  02  06  00 

Itm.  a  pewter  cisterne,  &  candlestick       -         -         -         -         -         -  00  04  00 

Itm.  a  pe  of  great  brass  Andirons             -         -         -         -         -         -  02  00  00 

Itm.  a  pe  of  small  Andirons     --------  00  06  08 

Itm.  a  pe  of  doggs.             ----.--..  ,,0  ,,2  06 

Itm.  a  pe  of  tongues,  fire  pan,  &  bellowes 00  07  00 

Itm  in  the  Parlour  a  livery  cubberd        -         -         -         -         -         -  00  10  00 

Itm  a  bedsteed,  a  trundle  Betl,  &  a  short  table       -         -         -         -  01  02  06 

Itm.  a  high  chaire,  6  high  stooles,  w'''  green  &  red  covers     -         -  or  16  00 

Itm  a  low  chaire,  &   2  low  stooles  -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  08  00 

Itm.  a  feather  bed,  &  bolster  iS;   2  piUowes 04  18  00 

Itm.  3  blanketts,  &  an  old  green  rugg 02  04  08 

Itm.   a    pe   of    great  brass   Andirons  a    pe   of    doggs  a   fire   pan    & 

tongs  of  brass  broken        -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  02  00  00 

Itm  a  set  of  curtins,  &  vallins 01  05  00 

Itm.  in  M":^    Batons  chamber,  a  little  cubberd   w'i>  drawers     -         -  00  14  00 

Itm.  2  chests,  a  desk,  &  a  Bedsteed o  1  06  00 

Itm.  a  little  Table,  a  box,  &  a  empty  case 00  15  08 

Itm.  a  case  w"'  12  ([uart  bottles,  w'^  a  locke            -         -         -         -  00  05  00 

Itm  a  case  with    12  pinte  bottles  Wth  a  locke            -         -         .         -  00  03  06 

Itm.  2  empty  cases  &  4  basketts     -         - 00  07  06 

Itm.  2  chaires,  2  high  wyne  stooles,  &  3  low  stooles      -         -         -  00  14  00 

Itm.  2   fether  bedds,  &  2  bolsters  5*  8^ 05  08  00 

Itm.  a  red  coverlitt,  a  blew  rugg,  &  2  blanketts    -         -         -         -  01  06  08 

Itm.  a  greene  rugg ---01  04  00 

Itm.  curt  la|  ins,  &  vallins  of  Canopy  bed 00  06  08 

Itm.  2  **  curtaines,  &  a  little  coverlitt   -         -         -         -         -         -  00  14  08 

Itm.  hangings  &  window  curtaines  -         -         -         -         -         -         -  01  10  00 

Itm.  3  blanketts,  &  a  flock   pillow     -         - 01  29  00 

Itm.  a  sett  of  curtaines,   &   vallens 01  04  00 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  293 

£  S  d 
Itm.   a    paire    of    brass    andirons,   doggs,    fire    ]jan    tongs,    fire    iron 

Back  iron  &c     -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  oi  04  oo 

Itm.  in  the  chamber  over  the  kitchen,  a.  bedsteed  w'''  cnrtaines  & 

vallins,  &  curtaine  rods,  &  a  presse            -----  00  18  04 

Itm.  a  ffeather  bed  a  bolster  &  2  pillows           -         -         -         -         -  04  07  00 

Itm.  a  coverlitt,  a  rugg,  &  a  Blankett      -         -         -         -         -         -  01  02  04 

Itm.    in    the    other    Chamber,    a    half    headed    bedsteed,    a    trundle 

bed,  &  a  closst  stoole         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  10  00 

Itm  a  fHock  bed,  2  bolsters,  &  a  feather  pillow       -         .         .         .  (,i  j-  00 

Itm.  a  red  rugge  &  blanket,  &  a  little  rugg    -         -         -         -         -  01  05  00 

Itm  in  y=  Garrett,  a  half  headed  Bedsteed  &  coard        -         -         -  00  06  00 

Itm.  3  flock  bedds,  &  a  bolster,  &  a  feather  bolster       -         -         -  03  05  00 

Itm.  a  blankit,  a  coverlit  &  a  beare  skin          -         -         -         -         -  00  18  04 

Itm.  in  the  Counting  house,  a  cubberd  w'*'  a  chest  &  drawers       -  04  00  00 

Itm  a  square  table  &  a  chaire         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  10  00 

Itm.  2  iron  bound  chests          -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -  01  00  00 

Itm.  2   half  bushells.  &  3  old   bo.xes         '         -         -         -         -         -  00  09  00 

Itm.  a  hatchell,  a  grindleston,  &:  a  wheelborrow     -         -         -         -  00  16  00 

Itm.  a  copper  in  the  brewhouse       -         -         -         -         -         -         -  05  00  00 

Itm   2  Steele  malt  mills    ---------  01  10  00 

Itm,  bookes,  &  a  Globe,  &  a  mapp           -         -         -         -         -         -  4S  15  00 

Itm  one  Cart  with   wheeles,  &  ye  body  of  another  Cart          -         -  02  10  00 

Itm.  a  slide'  w'''  an  iron  bolt           -         -         -         -         -         -         -  00  13  00 

Itm  3  yoakes  w'/"  irons    -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -         -00  07  00 

Itm.  2  plow  chaines,  &  a  spanshakle  34!*^' 00  17  00 

Itm.  2  oxen   12*   2  bulls  lol**   2  kine  Sf'           -----  30  00  00 

Itm  3  heiphers  of  3  yeare  old          -         -         -         -         -         -         -  11  00  00 

Itm.  a  heipher  of  2  yeare  old           -         -         -         -         -         -         -  02  05  00 

Itm   2  steares  of  4  yeare  old  9!*'  4  steares  of  3  yeare  old   13^      -  22  00  00 

Itm.  37  ewes  69]'^'   7*   6^  2  rams  &  4  weathers  4''  3^  4f           -         -  73  10  00 

Itm.  a  sow,  &  a  boare  22'   a  mare   16]^'    -         -         -         -         -         -  17  02  00 

Itm.  5  acres  of  wheate,  &  one  acre  of  rie  sowne   -         -         -         -  07  00  00 

'Our  "sled."     ? 


'294  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


£ 


Ilm.   the  house  with    all    tlie  accommodations    there    unto,  w'''  the 

two  ffarmes,  M:  y^   half,   part  of  the   Mill   -----  525  00  00 

Itm  for  disbursments  to  the  iron   worke           -         -         -         -         -  07  10  00 

Itm   for  hides,  &  skins  at  the  Tanners    -         -         -         -         -         -  1 1  oS  00 

Itm  at  the  Brickiliie  ffarme.  5   o.xen  ^^^'   2  bulls  iil"^     -         -         -  .(5  00  00 

Itm   7   kine  31!^'   10?   a  steare  &  a  heipher  of  2  yere  old  y^   10^    -  39  00  00 

Itm.  a  cart,  &  a  slide'  w'.''  an  iron  bolt  ------  02  [2  00 

Itm  a  spanshakle,  3  chaines,  3  yoakes  w'*"  irons      -         -         -         -  01  01  00 

Itm.  a  plow  with  plow  irons,  &  a  fforke  12^   a  ffovvling.  peice   |26i 

8d  I 01  iS  08 

Itm.  a  sithe  2  **  hookes  a  axe.  &   2  old  hoes         -         -         -         -  00  05  06 

Itm.  3  cheese  fatts.  &  4  trayes -  00  06  oS 

Itm.  an  old  fflock  bed,  a  bolster.  2of>  blankits,  &   2  olil  sheets        -  o  1  03  00 

Itm.  an  old  saw,  &  irons  of  a.  old  churne       -         -         -         -         -  00  05  00 
Itm   ujion  the  ground  sowne,  5  acres  of  winter  wheat,  one  acre  of 

maslin.  2  acres  of  rie,  half  is  prised  at     -         -         -         -         -  02  06  08 

Itm  at  Stony  River  ffarme,  4  oxen  30*   14  kine  66*      -         -         -  96  00  00 

Itm  a  steare  of  4  yeare  old  4*  6?  8^  a  sow   i*   10?       -         -         -  05  16  08 


989:  01     00 


Itm.  4   heiphers,    &   a  bull   of  a  yeare  old    w'"^  are  to    be   divided, 

half  is.  prised  at  4* 

3  steares  of  two  yeare  old   half  is  prised  ----- 

Itm.  2  hoggs,  6  shotes,  &  4  piggs  half,  prised  at     - 
Itm.  a  Cart.  2  yoakes  \\'.^  irons,  a  Timber  chaine.   2  draft  chaines, 
i.\:  a  spanshakle  --------- 

Ilm  an  old  [ilow  w'^  irons  a  cock,  &  a  hooke        .         -         -         - 
Itm  a  slide,'  a  hay  hooke,  &  yrous  for  a  yoake     -         -         -         - 

Itm  a  stubbing  how,  &  a  fan   to  dress  corne  -         -         -         - 

Itm  6  racks,  for  cattell    ---- 

Itm.  a  bras  kettle,  a  brass  pot  &  pot  hooks 

Itm  a  cheese  presse    12   milk  boles,  &  trayes  .         -         -         - 

'Our  "sled."     ? 


04 

00 

00 

02 

12 

06 

"3 

10 

00 

"3 

20 

00 

00 

12 

00 

00 

oS. 

00 

00 

07 

06 

00 

•S- 

00 

00 

17 

00 

00 

16 

00 

EARLY    CONNECTICUT     HOUSES.  295 

£       s      d 

Itm  a  sword. 001200 

Itm  a  ffeather  Bed.  2  bolsters,  &  a  rugg. 02     10    00 

Itm  6  acres  of  winter  wheat  &  6  acres  of  rie  sowne  half  is.  prised 

at -07    00    00 


27     10    00 
Totall  Some       15 15      12    g6 

In  this  Inventory  is  onely  excepted  M'*    Batons    i     

Bed  not  vallued,  &  a  Silver  guilt  bason  &  ewe  1  Mathew  dilbert 
by  the  approbation  of  the  Court,  vallued  at  '  John:  wakeman 
o")  wf*"  M^    Eaton  claims  as  her  propy  Estate    ;    Richard  miles 

New   Haven   Probate   Records,  vol.  I,  Part   I,  pp.  69-74. 

From  the  inventory  of  Governor  William  Jones,  who  died  in 
1706 : 

"  I   great  red  chair  i-^    2  chairs  and   2  stools 
I   cabinet  3-^  desk  6' 

hangings  of  middle  chamber  30^  one  great  chest  25' 
one  bed  &  the  furniture.     15^  6^ 
one  grett  chair  30^      double  chist  of  drawers. 
Carpet  5^   Carpet  3^   g"*  Table   lo^    5   stools  and  five  cushions, 
one  Chair  table   lo' 

one  bed,  bedstead  &  furniture.  8^  16^  d^ 
Table  8^   morter  5^   iron  pott  hooks  i-^ 
one  chest   iS"* 

hangings  of  green  chamber.  2   lbs.  calleco  carpet        -         .         .  02.    11-  00 

one  lamp  &  other  things 
2.   pr  of  sheets 
I   bille 
in  plate   27-^  " 

From  the  inventory  of  his  wife,  Mrs.  Hannah  Jones,  daughter 
of  Governor  Eaton,  whose  mansion  descended  to  her;  she  died 
June  3,   1707: 


296  EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 

"  in   plate   21^ 

grt  chist.,  bed  bedstead  cord  and   matt. 

green  curtains  in  the  middle  chamber  i£  los. 

sheets  &  2  diaper  table  cloths, 

.     .     .     .     2  cannopy  carpets  30^ 

a   brass  kettle  4-^  8^    a  warming  |)an,  a   ijrass   pan    25^ 

Trammell,  ir(jn   pott  5^    i  a  cart   &   implinieiUs. 

brass  kettle,  a  smale   Bed  8^ 

needlework  chaire  30^ 

Tongs  2*   (i^,2  chairs  &  cushions   14^ 

cabinet"  with  drawers  30^ 

pair  of  handirons  S'' 

curtain  5^ 

The   house  is  mentioned,  and,  with   five  acres  of  "  homelott,"  is 
valued  at  ^190. 


INDEX   OF    NAMES   AND    PLACES 


Allerton,  Isaac,  95,    110,  111,  131,  262 

Mrs.,  262 
Allyn   house,  241 

Secretar}%  208 
Andrews,  William,  270,  272,  273 
Arnold  house,  Benedict,  74 
Atherton  partners,  5 
Atwater,  iSi. 

Bacon,  Andrew,  42,  279,  280,  281 
Baldwin,  96,  125,  185,  187.  210,  219,  221, 

263,  264 
Ball,  Allen,  269 
Barnard,  Chauncey,  286 

Dorus,  44,  64,   75,    171,    iSi, 

193,  224,  228,  283,  286 
Francis,  42,  280 
Grove,  284,  286 
James,  285,  286 
Captain  John,  44,  47,  59,  64, 
65,  18S,   197,  228,  262,  283, 
284,  285 
John   (son  of  Captain),  286 
Barrett,  6g,  70,  276 
Bassaker,  Peter,  273,  274 
Bay  Colony,  5.  149,  240 
Beach,  Richard,  iSo 
Beckley,  Richard,  59,  239.  270 


Beckley  Quarter,  59 

Belden,  69,  86,  88,  211,  267 

Benham,  John,  180 

Benjamin,  52,   144,    145,    155,   215,   221, 

223 
Berkshire,  122 
Berlin,  5S,  196,  264 
Bigelow,  Jonathan,  64,  285 
BUIerica,  264 
Bissell,  John,  224 

Thomas,  224 
Boston,  1 10,  146,  247 
Boykin,  Jarvis,  239,  272. 
Bradstreet,  256 
Branford,  96,   125,   139,   185,   187,   210, 

219,  22  r,  263,  264 
Britain,  Great,  204 
Bull,  Governor  Henry,  113 
Bunce,  James,  285 
Burnham,  69,  79,  267,  26S 
Bury  St.  Edmund's,  239 
Butler  (Hartford),  69,  86 

(Wethersfield),  see  Belden 
Byles,  Rev.  Mather,  255. 

Cady,  i6r,  167 

Caldwell,   144.    '45-    'SO-    i5'.-i7--3o. 
234.  236 


298 


EARLY  CONNECTICUT  HOUSES. 


Cambridge,   12 
Canterbury,  169 
Carpenter,  William,  259 
Charing,  272 

Cheseborough,  William,  274 
Cheshire,  236,  237 
Clare,  189 
Clark,  Captain,  273 

George,  272 

John,  18,  19,  21,  25,  26,  31,  32, 
36,  38-  39,  40,  '77,  '9°,  232. 
233 

Nicholas,  7,  13,  14,  15 
Cleveland,  see  Goldsmith 
Clinton,  154 
Cobbett,  149 

Coddington,  Governor  William,  255 
Connecticut,  passim 
Cowles,  19,  29,  39,  57,  233 
Cranston,  149,  275 
Crawford,  John,  76 

Davenport,   Rev.   John,    7,  93,  95,  98, 
109,    no,     III,    130,     131,    140,    185, 

253 
Davy,  Even,  179 
Dedham,  6,  159,  257 
Deerfield,  38,  232,  242 
Dexter,  Gregory,  1S3,  184 
Dorchester,  1  2 
Doten,  258 
Dublin,  204 

East  Windsor  Hill,  87 
Easton,  James,  179 


Eaton,  Hannah,  98 

Mrs.,  99,  107,  108,  277 
Governor  Theophilus,  95,  96, 
98,  loi,  102,  104,  107,  109, 
no,  III,  114,  130,  131,  178, 
180,  182,  185,  200,  205,  253, 
256,  262,  272,  273,  277,  278, 
279,  287,  295 

Egleston,  James,  52 

Elderkin,  John,  159,   206,  249,  256,  272 

Eliot,  \\'yllys,  1 19 

Ellsworth,  Oliver  Jr.,  248 

Elm  Tree  Inn,  27,  28,  232,  239,  269 

England,  passim 

Essex,  247 

Evelyn,  210 

Eyers,  Mrs  ,  262 

Fairbanks,  6,  257 

Farmington,    18,   21,   27,  28,  31,  38,  57, 

62,  177,    190,  221,  232,  233.  239,  241, 

264,  etc. 
Fanner,  Arthur,  149,  255,  275 
Fenwick,  2 

Lady,  176 
Field,  193 
Fiske,  126,  144,  145,  146,  148,  149,  150, 

234,  240 
Foxen's  Hill,  177,  178 

Gibbard,  John,  254 
Gibbons,  William,  16 
Gilbert,  Matthew,  97,  287,  295 
Gening,  Jo,  179 
Glastonbury,  193 


INDEX     OF     NAMES     AND     PLACES. 


299 


Glastonbury,  South,  54 
Gleason,   19,   21,   29,  30,  31,  32,  34,  35. 
38,  39.  47,  S".  -II-  21--  214.  215,  221, 
228,  233,  241,  242,  257,  269 
Goldsmith,  132,  140 
Goodwin,  William,  207 
Goodyear,  Stephen,  273 
Grant,    Ebenezer,  9,   86,   87,   225,   234, 
262,  267 
Matthew,  87 

Samuel,  2d,  87,  92,  243,  251 
Sueton  (Newport),  233 
Greene,  176 

Gregson,  Thomas,  95,  no,  in,  131 
Griffing,  Jasper,  119,  120,  124 

Nathaniel,   124 
Griswell,  274 
Griswold,  Matthew,  176 
G  u  i  If  ord ,  passim 

Hadley,  279 

Haines,  Joseph,  32 

Halbidg,  Halbidge,  Arthur,  185,  246 

Halleck,  Fitz- Greene,  197 

Hambleton   Old   Hall,  99 

Hampton  Court   Palace,  195 

Harrison,  132,  139 

Hart,  Isaac,  58,  60 

Hartford,  passim 

Hayden,  William,  175 

Haynes,  Governor,  16,  188 

Hayward,  James,  270 

Hempstead,  Robert,  125,  161,  162,  203, 

210.  211,  219,  225,  241,  256 
Herefordshire,  236,  237,  238 


HoUister,    19,    53,    148,    211,    221,    231, 

233,  234,  239 
Hooker,   Rev.  Thomas,  7,   12,   16,  100, 
105,  188,  241 
Thomas,  284 
Hopkins,    Governor   Edward,   81,    184, 

185,  275 
Horton,  Barnabas,  141 
Hubbard,  in 
Hurlbut,  Thomas,  273 

Inn,  Elm  Tree.  27,  28,  232,  239,  269 
Ipswich,  149,  240 

Jones,  Mrs.   Hannah,  107,  295 
Inigo,  231 

Governor  William,  98,  106,  107, 
29s 

Kent,  41,  236,  238,  239,  247,  252,  272 

King  Philip's  War,  8,  49 

Kinsman,  161,  169,  178,  211,  230,  249 

Lamberton,  239 
Lancashire,  236,  237 
Lewis,  Captain  William,  28 

William,  schoolmaster,  28 
Lime  Rock,   183 
Lisbon,  161 

Little  Wenham   Hall,  122 
London,  41,  1S4,  255,  272 
Long  Island,  2,  140 
Lord,  Goodman,  174,  189 
Lothrop,  Samuel,  256 
Ludlow,  Mr.,  260 


300 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Lyman,  Richard,  270 
Lyme,  176 
Lynn,  159 

Madison,  154,  197 
Malvern  Hill,  193 
Manton,  125 
Manton  Sliadracli,  125 
AKirsh,  see   Burnliam 
Massachusetts,    2,    49,    95,    1S3,    190, 
314,    240,    256,    260, 

27s 
Bay,   2,  s,  94,  181,  225 
Mather,  Rev.  Licrease,   100,   102,  224, 

225,  230,  244,  260 
Mattabesett  River,  58 
Merrill,  Wilterton,  179 
Middletown,  176 
Miles,  Richard,  97,  287,  395 
Milford,  4,  52,  137,  144,  i4Si  I5S>  '^s, 

221,  241,  242,  366,  272 
Montacute   House,  99 
Moore  (Southoid),  142 
Moore,  Deacon  John,  37,  38 
John,  Jr.,  37,  38 
John,  3<1,  37 
Morrison,  133 
Moshassuck,  i<j6 
Mo  wry,  Roger,  135 
Mowry,  see  Viall 
Muliyner,  Mr.  367 
Munsnn,  270 

Narragansett,  3,  5,  7,  74,  169 
Nash,  Joseph,  53 


New   Amsterdam,  141 

New   England,  fassini 

New   Ham])shire,  331,  249 

New    Haven, /i(7jj7OT 

New   London,  pussii/i 

Newport,   5,    7,    74.   81,    113,    134,    i,S4, 

233.  255 
New  York,  146 
Norfolk,  140 
Northampton,  330 
Northamptonshire,  81 
Norwich,  8,   9,  158,   159,   161,  i6g,  178, 

230,  231,  336,  249 
Nowell,  Thomas,  16 
Noyes,  Rev.  Joseph,  109 
Oldham,  245 
Ohnstead,  James,  271 
Ohnsted,  Captain  Nicho,  183 
Olney,  Epenetus,  271 
Oundle,  81,  275 

Padley,  122 

Painter,  Thomas,  55,  133,  133,  185,  311, 

321,   231,  257 

Pantry,  William,  272 

Payne,  Mr.,  273 

Parkes,  274 

Parmelee,  Ebenezer,  147 

Patterson,  19,  53,  54,  58,  148,  196,  315, 

334,  331,  333,  33S,  339,  257,  263,  264, 

274,  276 
Peck,  Michael,  155 
Pequot,   146 
Perkins,  166 
Pickering,  277 


INDEX     OF     NAMES     AND     PLACES. 


301 


Plainfield,  243 

Plymouth,  6,  169,  325,  245,  248,  349,  258 

Porter,  Erastus,  iS,  19,  29 
Joseph,  31 

Portsmouth  (R.  I.),  246 

Potter,  John,  273 

Princess   Anne   County.  193 

Providence,  5,  7,  11,  13,  15,  76,  79,  93, 
125,  145,  146,  159,  i8r,  183,  184,  193, 
223.  243,  249,  255,  258,  260 

Pryce,  Nathaniel,  159 

Purkas,  John,  271 

Pulsifer,  55 

Putnam,  161,  167 

Pynchon,  Joseph,  119 
Thomas,    119 

Pyper.  Richard,  272 

Quaker  Hill,  159,  178 
Quinebaug,  161 

Quinnipiac,  i,  2,  93,  94,  185,  239,  240, 
273 

Rhode   Island, /(?«//// 

Richards,  James,  52,  rco 

Rochanibeau.  83 

Rogers,  Rev.  Ezekiel,  239 

Rouen,  246 

Rowland,  Rev.  Joseph,  100 

Rowley,  240 

Ruggles,  Rev.    Thomas,  112,  119 

Sandford,  Zachary,  42,  380,  281 
Salem,  6,    11,   ici,    145,    148,   162,    i6f>, 
198,  212,  251,  277 


Saltonstall,  7,  149,  240 

Saybrook,  1,  2,  4,  15,  134,  15S,  169.  1S3, 

193-  236 
Sayles,  Israel,  77,  196 
Saylesville,   77 
Scott,  Thomas,  178 
Seanior,  Richard,  179 
Sewall,  Judge  Samuel,  224 
Sheldon,    Mr.,    77  ;    see    Woodbridge, 

Sheldon 
Sheldon  (Deerfield),  38,  232,  242 
Shelley,  197 
Shipfield,  Edward,  180 
Shrewsbury,  239 
Shropshire,  41,  236,  237,  238 
Simsbury,  197,  254 
Smith,  William,  19 
Sound,  Long  Island,  154,  158,  174,  1S6, 

236,  242 
South  County,  161,  178 
Southold,    132,   140,  141,  iSi,  185,  248, 

349,  251 
Stamford,  199 
Standly,  Timothy,  271 
Stanley,  Caleb,  183 
Stanly,  Engs  Nathaniell,  183 
Stanley,  John,  Sr.,  31 
Steel,  Captain  Ebenezer,  31 
George,  288 
James,  284,  2S5 
John,  18 
Stell,  John,  19 
Stiles,  Francis,  7,  16,  41,  272 

President  Ezra,  98,  109,  no 
Stoddard,  John,  177 


302 


EARLY     CONNECTICUT     HOUSES. 


Stokesay  Castle,  237 
Stone,  13 
Stoujrliton,  24S 
Stowe,  133,  137,  341,  343,  366 
Suckiaug,  12 
Suffolk,  122,  189,  247 
Surrey,  325,  339,.  247 
Sussex,  236,  238,  339 
Sutlon   Courtenay,  122 

Talcott,  John,  7,  13,  15 

Lieutenant-Colonel   John,  Jr., 

13.  '4,  '59 

(Glastonbury),  193 

Major,  183 
Thompson,  Major  Robert,  114,  120,  123 
'I'horoughgood,  Adam,  2d,  193 
Trowbridge,   193 

United   Colonies  of  New  England,  5 

Vere,  Edward,  27  i 

Lady,  740 
Versailles,  158,  161,  169,  211,  249 
Viger,  Thomas,  183,  197 
Vigers,  Thomas,  183,  184 
Viall,  256 
Virginia,  68,  120,  186,  193,  195 

Wakeman,  Jo,  97,  287,  295 
Walker,  256 
Ward,  James,  267 

Nath,  280 
Warner,  166 
Warwick,  88,  166 


Warwick  Grant,  2 
Washington,  83 
Waterman,  193 
\Vatertown,  12,  245 

Webb,  Joseph,  9,  83,  85,  87,  88,  89,  90, 
144,    177.  >S8,  211,  215,  225,  234,  267 
\\'ebster,  Aijagail,  283 

Ann,   283 

Daniel,  283 

Ebenezer,  283,  2S4,  285 

Jacob,  283,  285 

Governor  John,  44,  282 

John,  282,  283,  284,  285 
Jr.  (3d),  283        . 

Jonathan,  283,  284 

Matthew,  64,  284,  285 

Medad,  283,  284 

Robert,  44,  64,  282,  283,  286 

Samuel,  283,  284 

Sarah,  283 

Susannah  Treat,  282,  283,  284 
Welles,  83 
Wells,  Henry,  270 
Wequetequock,  274 
West   Haven,  133,  1S5,  234 
Wethersfield,  passim 
Whitfield,    Rev.    Henry,   96,    iio,    112, 

113.  123,   '77,  19',  273 
Nathaniel,  1 14 
Whiting,    Captain    Joseph,   40,    41,   43, 
203,  228,  279,  280 
William,  Sr.,  47 
Whitman,  31,  and   following 
Wickham  Court,  252 
Wigglesworth,  Michael,  95 


INDEX     OF     NAMES     AND     PLACES. 


303 


Williams,  Roger,  loi,  143,  163,  166,  183, 

184,  198,  212 
Willson,  Robberd,  19 
Wilson,  Robert,  18 
Windham  County,  243 
Windsor,  J'lTss/m 

South,  195 
Winsor,  Sam.,  27  1 

Winthrop,    Governor    (Mass.),    2,    245, 
260 
(Conn.),    4,    158, 

159.    177,    183. 
184,   207,   210, 

214,  273 
Wolcott,  85 


Woodbridge,  Sheldon,  10,  69.  76,  77, 
86,  120,  143,  168,  181, 
"J3.  197,  21  r,  215,  217, 
258,  259,  261,  267,  269 
275.276 
Rev.  Dudle)',  197,  254 

Woodbury,    241 

Wren,  Sir  Christopher,  9,  231 

Wyllys,  George,  16,  188,  253,  282 

Wyman,  Amos,  263 

Yennicook,  140 
York,  238 
Yorkshire,  238,  239 
Yorktown,  83 


